


Combinatorics

by heyginger



Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Online Dating
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-05 11:54:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 31,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16810084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyginger/pseuds/heyginger
Summary: Patrick spends the Believers Never Die Part Deux tour secretly monitoring his growing crush on Joe. He has an equation that he uses to keep track of it--it’s complicated, but it involves boner-thoughts, hand-holding-thoughts, addition, subtraction, and division, which has to be at least 3/4ths of the elements needed for a serious mathematical calculation. He furtively plots the results in a spreadsheet, doesn’t really think about it the rest of the time, and everything is very normal and totally fine.Obviously.Then Joe announces his plan to try online dating, and that goes straight to hell.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please check out the INCREDIBLE [complement piece](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819954), including a movie poster and mix, created by [rosiedoesfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosiedoesfic) to this piece! It has so many details from the story...it's worth looking at closely once you're done, too, just to pick them all out!
> 
> [](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819954)  
> 
> 
> I could never have done this without the incredible cheerleading, support, and beta work from [rosiedoesfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosiedoesfic). She has been a lifesaver throughout the process!
> 
> Special thanks, also to [azurejay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/andchimeras/pseuds/azurejay) for brainstorming and beta-reading.

__

> _**Combinatorics** : the branch of mathematics dealing with combinations of objects belonging to a finite set in accordance with certain constraints, such as those of graph theory._

The first Patrick hears about it is when Joe comes banging onto his bus on a Tuesday. He’s wearing a baseball cap, backwards, and he’s kind of ambling, with a skateboard tucked under one arm. The wheels crash against the edge of the door, and Patrick jolts in response, sloshing milk and Cheerios out of his spoon and onto the sleeve of his hoodie.

“Okay,” Joe says. He says it weightily, loudly, like he’s about to make a grand pronouncement, but then he just plops down on the bench, legs akimbo.

Patrick watches him for a moment, but when Joe doesn’t continue to move or speak, he brings the sleeve of his hoodie to his mouth before the Cheerios get soggy.

“Okay..?” Patrick says, when he’s pretty sure he’s mitigated the damage the milk has done. It’s kind of gross, but--whatever. They won’t be able to do laundry for a few more days.

Joe is idly watching himself spin one of the wheels of his skateboard, and he looks up, confused for a moment, while the wheel makes a _tchk-tchk-tchk_ sound. Then he says, “Okay--right!” He grabs the wheel, stopping it, and leans forward. “It’s official,” he says, “there are no more fish in the sea.”

Patrick blinks.

“That’s what _I_ said!” Joe says earnestly, nodding.

“I didn’t say anything…” Patrick glances over his own shoulder, just in case Pete is behind him and this confusing conversation isn’t meant to involve Patrick at all. They seem to be alone on the bus, though, so he adds, “Are you high?”

Joe responds with double finger guns. “Yes. But--the point stands. I have tried to date every dateable person I know, and it turns out...none of them are dateable. They are not fish. They are...anemones or something.” He takes his cap off and rubs a hand through his sweaty hair, then resettles it. “Are anemones fish?”

“I...think they’re related to coral? Like...they’re half-plant or something.”

“That makes sense,” Joe is nodding, “because everyone I’ve tried to date lately is half-plant.”

Patrick feels a little bit guilty for silently agreeing, because it’s not NOT true. Joe has wasted his time on some real losers lately, not that Patrick was going to _say_ anything. And not that he’s gone out of his way to _notice_ \--it’s just hard when Joe keeps making a point to introduce them: _hey Patrick, meet Jackson (or Kayla or Ryan or Danielle)_. Sometimes (often) there’s even a friend, Mason (or Ethan or Luke), and Joe makes these eyes at Patrick, expectant and pleased, this kind of eyebrow bounce, like Patrick’s supposed to--what, help Joe choose between the white guy with dreads and the frat boy in crocs? Grant his approval for a threesome?

Patrick’s been borderline rude to a number of Ethans already--one of whom said his favorite Fall Out Boy song was “She Will Be Loved”--and the tour really just started. So, yeah. He’s glad Joe’s getting bored with the whole repetitive parade.

“Okay…?” he says. When Joe doesn’t continue, he adds, “Bad date last night?”

“No.” Joe shakes his head sadly and starts spinning his skateboard wheel again. “ _No_ date last night. He was 17. He was not a fish. So you see?”

“Rough break, buddy.” Patrick’s Cheerios are mush now, he notices. And the milk is warm. He turns and dumps his bowl into their tiny sink, next to the coffee maker. Then he decides to pour himself a cup of coffee. Maybe caffeine will help him follow this conversation.

“Hmmm,” is what Joe comes back with. Then, “This was the last anemone I can take, Patrick. It’s the tour, you know? Tour anemones. I think I’m going to try plenty of fish.”

That makes...no sense, and Patrick blinks down at the counter in confusion before turning back around with his coffee clutched in both hands. Joe is still taking up the whole bench, arms splayed over the back of it, legs spread and skateboard across his lap. The tops of both his knees and cheeks are sunburnt, and his expression is extraordinarily earnest, like they’re having a deep conversation right now. 

Patrick hates to disabuse him of this notion, but--“Okay, you have lost me with this sea life metaphor. I just woke up. I don’t know what you’re trying to say here, dude.” He knows he sounds vaguely pissy, but seriously. It’s early. Well--not traditionally early, but early for Patrick.

Joe just laughs, shakes his head, and ignores Patrick’s tone. “Online dating, Patrick. I was smoking up outside with James--tech James, not, you know, driver James--and he’s not a fish, either, by the way: totally straight. And then I was walking back to my bus, thinking about the anemones, and then it came to me, like, this great plan--I should try online dating. PlentyofFish.com. Or whatever the young people use these days.”

“And you decided to come straight over and tell me…” There’s an implied question in Patrick’s tone, but Joe doesn’t seem to pick up on it. He just nods and spins the skateboard wheels again. _Tchk-tchk-tchk._ “Because…?” Patrick leads.

“Oh,” Joe says, looking back up. “Well, now you’re caught up. Because you hate it when you’re not caught up.”

It makes Patrick smile around his grumpy morning grimace, even though he’s still a little confused about the anemones, because it’s true--he _hates_ being at a conversational disadvantage--and because Joe looks so stoned and yet so serious about keeping Patrick in the loop.

Joe smiles, too. Then his smile fades into something faintly squirrely. “So...I’m gonna preface this by saying that my hopes are not high...but I’m also telling you because I thought _maybe_...you’d try it with me.”

Patrick doesn’t skip a beat. “I’d rather go deaf.”

Joe winces. “You could meet some people…”

“I already know people.”

“...try it on with some dudes…”

“No.”

Joe sighs. “Patrick,” he says, earnestly, “as your bisexual mentor--”

“You’re not my bisexual mentor.”

“Harsh--also, of course I am. It can’t be _Pete_ and David Bowie’s not here right now, so...it falls to me.”

“I neither have nor want a bisexual mentor,” Patrick says firmly.

Joe ignores him. “As your bisexual mentor, I think it’s my responsibility to guide you, you know? Think of the internet as your debutante ball, and I am your Mr. Miyagi, here to usher you out of the closet and into a whole new world of getting your feet wet with dudes. Or getting your dick wet. Whichever.”

Patrick’s nose crinkles. “I don’t think Mr. Miyagi helped Daniel-san with that. And,” he quickly tacks on, because it’s best to be clear, “I don’t need your help with that. And also, I would rather die than do online dating.”

Joe’s grin doesn’t falter at all--he just shrugs. “Okay, I hear what you’re saying: you need to sleep on it. We can circle back later. I just--I think it could be good, you know?” Patrick opens his mouth to protest again, and Joe rolls his eyes and cuts him off. “For me, at least. What could go wrong?” He pauses for a beat and then sniffs the air. “Can I get some of that coffee?”

Patrick gestures at the coffee maker and Joe rolls his eyes and stands up, leaving his skateboard taking up the whole bench. Patrick pushes it out of the way and sits down, using the distraction to think about Joe’s question. He’s not really sure if watching Joe try online dating will be better than meeting more Ethans. The idea makes Patrick’s stomach sink, and it’s probably because of all the opportunities for disastrous fan encounters and...blog posts. And didn’t Clay Aiken get outed because of his profile on some gay dating site?

So, see, it’s perfectly reasonable for Patrick to have reservations, just because of the _band_ , and he really, probably should share them with Joe, who might not know about Clay Aiken. But when Joe turns back around he looks pleased with himself and still so earnest, and all Patrick can bring himself to do is shrug and say, “Eh.”

Joe nods thoughtfully and stirs his coffee. “Good point.”

Patrick rolls his eyes. “I’m just saying...how’s that even going to work with touring? Like, we’re not in the same spot long enough to meet someone.”

“We’re in the same spot long enough for _some_ things.” Joe attempts to leer, but he’s chuckling, too, so the overall effect is just goofy.

It makes Patrick even more uneasy, but he forces a tiny laugh. “And...you’d have to be careful about...you know. _Some things_.”

“Sure.” Joe’s still smiling, almost beaming at Patrick. It’s unnerving.

“You’re gonna do it anyway, aren’t you?”

Joe nods. “Think so.” He still looks amused. “I just, you know, I mean...I’m kind of sick of the tour thing, you know?”

Patrick doesn’t know, really--from where he’s been sitting, it’s seemed like Joe has been enjoying the fleeting attentions of the many, many people he’s charmed from city to city. Still, he nods knowledgeably. “Tour anemones?”

Joe chuckles. “Exactly. Maybe it’s time to find the Nemo to my Dory.”

“Nemo was a _child_ \--they weren’t dating,” Patrick says, but he thinks he knows what Joe means, and he’s not sure he likes it. He fidgets with his coffee mug.

Joe rolls his eyes. “Okay...the Marlin to my Dory.”

“You’re looking for a neurotic, pedantic, cranky little fish friend?” Patrick asks.

Joe is so amused, unaccountably, that his eyes crinkle. Then he rolls them, still smiling. “Friendship, Patrick. Or...compatibility, maybe. Like, a date with someone who is of legal age and who I at least _kind of_ have a spark with.”

“And you’re going to find this online?” Patrick’s not _trying_ to sound skeptical, but it leaks out anyways.

Joe is unfazed, and he doesn’t really answer the question. “It was three things, really--why I came over here to tell you right after I came up with my plan. I mean, this was part of the plan: I wanted to keep you in the loop, and I wanted to give you the chance to tell me it’s a bad idea. Because you like both of those things.” He’s smiling fondly while he says it, eyes soft and teasing, and Patrick can’t even be offended.

“That’s only two.”

“Right, I wanted to tell you that this is a great idea...you know...online dating; great idea.” His free hand makes an arc, palm out, like he’s revealing the title of his novel, like it’s a _The More You Know_ moment.

Patrick scoffs, and Joe leans down and pokes him the side for it, then scoops up his skateboard from next to Patrick’s right hip.

“Dating, Patrick,” he says, as he straightens up, tone serious like he’s narrating a documentary, “dating in the technology age. Meeting people. Getting out there…” He seems to lose steam and his voice slides back to a drawl. “It’s good. You’ll see.”

Before Patrick can mount an argument, Joe is backing out the door and his wheels hit the partition behind the driver’s seat, this time, causing him to slosh coffee onto the ground. “You’ll see--trust me,” he calls out, bumbling backwards down the steps, dripping along the way. “I have a plan!”

Patrick finds himself squinting a little at James the tech, after that, and everyone else Joe's been hanging out with on this tour, too. He just--he didn't realize that Joe was actually, like...looking around for real, looking to buy, or whatever. It's oddly disconcerting, somehow.

"Hey, is James the tech straight?" he asks Andy on their bus the next afternoon. Andy is digging down the side of the bench, searching for his phone charger, and Patrick tosses the question off as casually as he can in hopes that it might get answered without much notice.

It almost works. "Uh..." Andy says distractedly, shoving his hand down between cushions, "James?" He yanks his cord out and holds it up in triumph, then his head snaps toward Patrick as the question really registers. "Wait, what?" 

Patrick looks down at his phone, swiping at the screen as nonchalantly as he can manage. "Yeah, I don't know...I heard he was straight, but like...there's **straight** and then there's, you know, _straight_ ," he kind of wobbles his head back and forth. "I mean...is anyone 100% straight?"

"...You want his Kinsey score?" 

Patrick shrugs uncomfortably. "I'm just curious." 

"Huh," Andy says, eyebrows pushing toward his hairline. "Huh. You could ask him, I guess. But I don't think you actually get a toaster or whatever for converting someone, so if you've heard he's straight, maybe just...look elsewhere."

"I'm not _looking_ \--" Patrick starts, and then cuts himself off. Trying to explain is just going to draw more attention to this conversation, and he doesn't even know why he asked in the first place. "Never mind."

Andy stares for another second and then shrugs before heading back to his bunk, and Patrick scowls down at his phone. It was just idle curiosity, he tells himself. That's all.

The second time Patrick hears about Joe’s online dating plan, they’re eating dinner backstage in an arena in Portland. It’s been a week since Joe first mentioned it to Patrick, and it hasn’t come up again. Patrick wondered, for a few days, if Joe was still considering it, but he certainly hasn’t _asked_. He’s happy to let this idea join “bungee jumping music video” and “beauty school” on the list of things that seemed brilliant when Joe was high and then were promptly forgotten.

So Patrick’s not thinking about it while he deconstructs his ham and cheese sandwich. He’s definitely not wondering what Joe’s doing on his laptop in the corner that’s making him squint at the screen in concentration, just like he didn’t wonder where Joe disappeared to on Tuesday, in San Jose, and who he might have been meeting and if it might have been a date.

It’s not even on Patrick’s radar.

But then Joe says, “Okay, guys--I think I’ve got my profile ready to go.”

Andy looks resigned, and Pete says, “Did you spice it up?”, but neither looks surprised. It’s clear that Joe has not forgotten his plan at all--so much for keeping Patrick in the loop.

He doesn’t really mention it to Patrick now. He just spins his laptop around on the table, and Pete, who is ironing the sweat stained t-shirt he’s been wearing all day, just because there’s an ironing board available, slips it back on and goes to read.

Patrick uses a wilted leaf of lettuce to wipe half the mayo off his baguette and pretends like he’s ignoring them. He doesn’t want to see Joe’s online dating profile, and he absolutely hasn’t created a Plenty of Fish account to try and find it.

Pete is squinting at the screen when Patrick looks back up. His brow is furrowed, but he’s smiling, too, which probably means that Joe’s profile is charming, despite itself--sort of like Joe, in sum, and Patrick glares at the mayo that’s smeared on his thumb. 

After a minute of little _hmms_ and _uh-huh_ s, Pete says, “Well, you’ve made some interesting choices.”

“You said to spice it up!”

“Yeah, but...I mean, you’ve included a lot of stuff that’s just...lies?” Pete scratches his head and squints, then adds, “Implausible lies, even? Not to be harsh, but...I mean, this says that you once lived in an airport for a month.”

“Yep.” Joe looks really proud of this, even when faced with Pete’s quizzical frown.

Patrick gives up on feigning disinterest and blatantly stares.

“Why does it say that?” Pete asks. “I mean...what?”

“It’s probably true, like--if you add up all the time. And it’s sexy and intriguing. Like Tom Hanks, in The Terminal.”

Joe’s all earnest eyes again, and Pete just looks confused. “Okay, I’m not sure that ‘temporarily homeless’ is as big of a selling point as you’re thinking...and, like, you wrote that you were once called to the scene of a murder at the Louvre…?”

Joe laughs. “It’s sexy,” he says, and there’s a _duh_ hidden in the tone of his voice, “and intriguing. Like Tom Hanks, in The DaVinci Code.”

“Ah yes,” Pete says, nodding sagely. “Tom Hanks. The James Dean of our time.”

“ _Patrick_ thinks Tom Hanks is attractive.”

“Patrick is a 55 year old librarian trapped in a rockstar’s body. You’re not writing an OkCupid profile aimed at Patrick.”

Joe shrugs. “Maybe I want Patrick to see all the other Tom Hanks superfans he can meet when he joins, too.”

“ _Patrick’s_ gonna do online dating?”

“No,” Patrick says firmly, before that idea can take root. “Patrick is not. And also--Tom Hanks has kind eyes, okay, but I’m hardly a superfan.” Joe smirks and Pete looks speculative, like he’s planning Patrick’s profile, and Patrick rushes to keep the focus on someone other than him. “Joe, dude...don’t you think you should just be honest about yourself, probably? Like--if you really want to meet someone you could actually see yourself dating.”

Joe just laughs. “The truth is boring. It’s not like I can say that I’m the guitarist for Fall Out Boy, and I’ve got the rest of the stuff in there. I travel a lot for work. I look like a young Kenny G.”

“What?” Patrick’s brow crinkles. “Just...what?”

But Pete is nodding again. “Sure, sure,” he says. “It’s an unorthodox approach, but I like it! Just...maybe tone down the Tom Hanks-specific references. It seems a little...weird. Otherwise--perfect.”

But Joe just sighs and closes the screen on his laptop. “No...now I’m doubting myself. See, I was aiming for ‘intriguing and sexy’,” he does air quotes, “but I think I missed the mark.”

“Maybe you should go with your actual strengths?” Andy finally joins the conversation, and then backtracks when Joe frowns. “I mean, not that you’re not, you know--”

“Intriguing and sexy,” Patrick fills in.

“Right,” Andy says. “But, you know, you’re funny and smart…”

“Like Tom Hanks in Apollo 13,” Patrick chimes in again, and Joe laughs.

Andy’s frowning, though. “Was Tom Hanks funny in that movie?”

“He’s an astronaut, so...he’s definitely smart.” Patrick shrugs.

“I like it!” Joe points at Patrick, then makes a show of tapping his finger against his lips. After a moment, he shakes his head. “I don’t know, Patrick. A+ idea, but I’m gonna fall down on execution. I don’t know enough about space. I mean, I saw that episode of the The Simpsons, but…mostly I just learned that potato chips will clog the instruments.” He sighs. “You know guys, I think I’ve gotta get off this Tom Hanks kick,” he says it like it’s just occurring to him, and Pete nods like it’s a brilliant and original idea. “I know what you’re gonna say,” Joe continues, holding up a forestalling hand, “Tom Hanks _is_ great. But it’s just--it’s not leading me anywhere good, so. Who else is intriguing and sexy?”

A tech pops in to summon them before Patrick can figure out how to answer that, and they filter out of the room while Pete tosses out names. “Bjork? James McAvoy? Oooh, James McAvoy. You could be Scottish. Can you do an accent?”

Patrick detours to throw out his napkin and then jogs a few paces to catch up.

“Is James McAvoy sexy?” Joe asks, leaning into Patrick’s side. Patrick blinks in response. He’s not really the standing authority on sexiness in the band, ever since they found out about his thing for Helen Mirren.

“Don’t do an accent,” is what he finally answers, definitively, because it’s good advice and probably needs to be said. Then he tacks on, “Tom Hanks is sexier.”

They play the show. Patrick still can’t find any evidence of Joe on Plenty of Fish, so he tries JDate, just in case.

Joe goes on his first date in Seattle, two nights later, courtesy of OkCupid. They hear all about this girl, Lissie, over the course of the afternoon--how she likes Metallica and she has a pug and she’s going to school for marine biology, isn’t that cool? Joe shows up on Patrick’s bus three different times, wearing three different shirts, and it isn’t until the third time that Patrick realizes that he’s auditioning outfits.

“Just wear your normal clothes!” he finally says, when it clicks. Joe is currently wearing a black and red plaid flannel--it’s kind of a lumberjack look, but it makes the ink on his forearms pop and his shoulders look appealingly broad. Patrick doesn’t share that thought. “What you’re wearing is fine.”

Joe huffs and rolls his eyes. “But is it, like...fancy enough?” 

The date is at a Chipotle, nextdoor to a TJMaxx, and Patrick is not sure that fancy is the way to go. But Joe’s impossible like this so he just nods thoughtfully and says, “Do you have any ties you could wear? Bow? Bolo? An ascot?”

Joe throws his phone at Patrick’s head, and then scrambles after it immediately, dusting it off when it hits the carpet with a dull thud. But at least he stops agonizing over his stupid, sexy shirt.

When Joe gets ready to head out the door, he’s giggling at something Lissie texted him, and his cheeks are the tiniest bit red. Patrick bites back on all the advice he wants to give, which is mostly along the lines of _maybe she should sign an NDA if you don’t want everyone who reads Perez Hilton to track down your dating profile tomorrow_ and _don’t give her your real phone number until the 5th date._

Instead, he offers, “Hey, do you want me to call you in an hour so you have an excuse to leave if she’s psycho?” and feels really proud of himself for being such a good friend until Pete says, “Isn’t that more of a thing for chicks?” and Andy smacks Pete on the back of the head.

Joe just smiles and says, “Hey, yeah, good call,” and Patrick’s back straightens a little bit again.

The _only_ reason he sets a timer on his phone is so that he doesn’t forget, because he said one hour and he’s a man of his word. No matter what Pete says.

In the end, when Patrick calls, Joe doesn’t answer, justs texts back: _all is well_. 

That leaves two options, Patrick immediately concludes. _All is well_ \--that means the date is good, and so obviously Joe is either going to sleep with her tonight, or they’ll go on another date. They’re in Seattle for two more nights--maybe he’ll bring her to a show. She’ll probably be charming and funny, and, and...taller than Patrick. She’ll probably know how to help Andy tear down his kit, and get along great with Pete and go shopping with Ashlee--oh, god, they’ll become _couple_ friends and have dinner parties and Patrick will have to bring fake dates or he won’t be invited because you can’t be the single guy when couples have dinner parties.

This is way, _way_ worse than the Clay Aiken thing.

It’s going to give Patrick a panic attack or something, so he slams his headphones on and focuses on GarageBand and doesn’t think about it again, really, not at all, until Joe bangs onto his bus maybe an hour and a half later. She’s not a one night stand, then--which is just great; now there’s awkward backstage conversation to look forward to tomorrow night. Patrick can ask her all about dolphins, or whatever. They’ll probably have their wedding at SeaWorld. Awesome.

Joe sprawls on the bench, still in his date clothes. His hair is wild, and he’s smiling, but the giddy flush he had earlier is gone. Patrick takes off his headphones gingerly.

“How’d it go?”

“Meh,” Joe says, then he laughs. “It was fucking weird, dude. I don’t know. She was, like ...cute and stuff? And it was fine at first. But when you called, she wanted to know who it was, and I told her it was you--that it was just work stuff. But she got really...interested in that. Like-- _super_ interested. Like-- _what’s the rest of the band doing tonight_ and _maybe we could all hang out_. I don’t know. When I didn’t jump on that idea, I’m pretty sure she offered to get us all some blow to, like...facilitate a party or something?”

“Oh,” Patrick says, surprised into laughing. “Well, at least she’s...generous.”

“Yeah,” Joe says. “Like, I didn’t even have the heart to tell her that Pete’s probably watching NOVA with his girl and you were probably, like, making tea in your pjs.”

Patrick blinks down at his teacup, working up an indignant defense, but then Joe reaches over and swipes Patrick’s mug. “You were right,” he says, after an ostentatious gulp. “Is this the oolong? You were right, it’s good.”

Patrick rolls his eyes, but then gets up to make another cup, secretly pleased. While his back is to the room, he says, “Wasn’t she supposed to be a super serious student or something? Jezzy, I mean?”

Joe snorts. “Lissie-- _Jezzy?_ Really?” Patrick shrugs. “Yeah,” Joe says after guzzling more of Patrick’s perfectly steeped tea, “I mean, it turns out that she’s a big liar? She clearly didn’t know anything about Metallica and she admitted she’s not in college. Like...I think she works at Walmart, actually. She didn’t say as much, but she had one of those vests in her purse.”

“Dude, you should have taken the out when I called you!” That hangs there for a moment, and then Patrick backtracks because it sounded wrong, classist or something, “I mean...because of the lying. Not the Walmart thing, you know…” he fumbles, “the economy…I mean, there’s no shame in it...honest wages...”

Joe lets him talk for a moment, grinning at his awkward discomfort. “Her pants weren’t on fire, dude. I didn’t know when I walked in....it was, like, a gradual reveal. But yeah, I don’t know how you even screen for lying, anyway, like. I guess it’s just the risk...you can’t trust anyone, these days.”

“Doesn’t your profile say that you have your pilot’s license?” Because it does, and Patrick _knows it_.

“Not the point!” Joe says. “The point is, Jezzy didn’t work out…and tomorrow is a new day.”

Patrick manfully bites down on his pessimism again. When Joe leaves, he takes Patrick’s favorite mug with him. Patrick watches him go and puts his headphones back on, but the concentration on work that he’d been faking all evening is now out of reach.

It is _just_ possible that Patrick has feelings for Joe (probable, even dead certain, but ‘possible’ feels much safer). Patrick has been doing the math over and over in his head for a couple of months now, a complicated equation of number of boner-thoughts about Joe + hand-holding-thoughts about Joe + times his hands want to shake when they’re alone and Joe smiles at him, like his adrenaline thinks something might _happen_ even though nothing is going to _happen_. Then he subtracts the number of times he has those thoughts about Pete and Andy (negligible) and divides by the number of times they’ve seen each other that day.

The results are hard to interpret, since the equation is nonsense, but the trend is clear: it’s been a bigger number, every day, for weeks.

It wasn’t of note; it wasn’t _anything_ , at first. Patrick came into having _those_ feelings (boner-feelings) about men a little bit late, maybe. And at first it was this revelation, all the possibilities, and maybe he cast his gaze a little too wide. Joe was right there, in his line of sight being happily bisexual and supportive, and those first, intrusive, sneaky boner-thoughts were easy to blame on proximity. The other feelings, the hand-holding ones...well there was a lot between the four of them, friendship and family and love. And when Patrick came out to the band, almost a year ago, Joe got him a cake that said, “Welcome to the Club!” with a picture of a dick and pubes in squiggly chocolate icing on the top. Who wouldn’t want to hold that guy’s hand?

So yeah. That’s where Patrick is--past the point of ignoring all of it, with a rising statistic for every day he spends in Joe’s company and a horrible fear of making aquatic-based small talk with the perfect person Joe will eventually bring home. Because Joe _will_ find someone, if he keeps trying. Someone who appreciates his sense of humor, shares his interests and gets along with Pete and Andy, and they’ll probably get a dog and name it Mary Jane and dance to Anthrax at their wedding.

And Patrick will drink his oolong and plot little graphs in a hidden spreadsheet on his laptop and...that’s really all there is to the plan, so far.

It is all, Patrick tells himself, 100% under control.

James, the stoner tech, starts learning hacky-sack, and Joe starts learning it, too. Patrick’s not sure what there is to learn, really--you kick a thing and when it falls you pick it up and kick it again--but hey, time on tour makes for strange hobbies. As far as Patrick can tell, it involves a lot of shouting and scuffling on the blacktop between buses, and something called a “toe stall”, and when Joe comes inside he’s smiling and slightly out of breath.

It's not that Patrick is jealous--it's just that he's been able to hear them laughing outside the bus for the past ten minutes, and kind of see them, too, bouncing around on a tiny patch of grass ten feet on the other side of the tinted window. If anything, it's annoying because he feels left out in general. It's not at all about James in particular, who has started dating one of the lighting techs but still seems to want to hang out with Joe and talk to Joe and stick a knee between Joe's legs to adjust his hacky-sack stance an awful lot for someone with a new girlfriend and, presumably, other time commitments.

Patrick isn't going to feed this--whatever it is--the spreadsheet situation with Joe, and so he's ignoring the hacky-sack thing altogether, until Joe comes onto the bus and suggests that he's very much in the mood for froyo. 

Joe is hot--physically overheated and, like, sun-baked and probably just baked, too. His skin is dewey, and his hair curls behind his ears, at the nape of his neck, and Patrick is trading hard in cool glances and put-upon sighs to hide the fact that he’s a cartoon mouse and Joe is basically gruyere, sending out visible, seductively finger-shaped odor lines beckoning to him. Add in the fact that Pete doesn’t like froyo and Andy doesn’t eat it, and they get in a car, alone on this afternoon excursion.

It’s torture.

On one level, the froyo is fine. It’s is not as good as ice cream, but it’s tasty and if you put gummy bears on it they get really cold and stiff and the texture is, like, twice as pleasant as normal gummy bears, so it has that going for it. But still, Patrick could take it or leave it as a concept; he’s not going out of his way for froyo and even the frozen gummy bears aren’t causing his ruin and damnation.

But it’s warm in Miami and Joe’s arms are bare, and there are metal tables on the sidewalk with scrolly iron chairs. Some guy rollerblades past and, for a moment, it feels like a summer boardwalk date from a high school experience Patrick never had.

Joe has freckles on his shoulders, and the table is tiny, one of those tiny tables that only ice cream parlors have, so small that their knees keep bumping. Joe’s lips turn pink from the cold, and shiny as he keeps sucking on his spoon, and Patrick spins off into a daydream of a kiss, where Joe’s fingers would be cool against his cheeks from holding his froyo, but his shoulders would be warm from the sun under Patrick’s hands, and he’d taste like cherries. The mental image follows him all the way home and, possibly, into his dreams that night.

It’s Pavlovian. Joe suggests it the first time, but Patrick has opposable thumbs and a fully developed sense of cause and effect, and once the idea has taken root, he’s both salivating and ringing the bell.

“Froyo?” he offers in Atlanta, when Joe wanders back to the buses in the middle of the day with sweat on his forehead and a beanbag in his hand.

Joe pushes his sunglasses into his hair and points _and_ snaps at the same time. “You’re speaking my language,” he says, grinning. “You got a place?”

Patrick shrugs. “I think there’s a place nearby,” he says, nonchalantly pretending like he wasn’t scoping it out on yelp 400 miles and six hours ago.

So they go.

Joe keeps up a running patter about some fight his mom is having with Sam about his semester abroad and Patrick tries to remember how to act normally in a car and then in line at the froyo place.

“I might be in a strawberry mood.” Joe is musing, slightly in front of him and pondering the options, and Patrick is trying not to focus on the curve of his neck, behind his ear, where a few strands of hair are curling again. “Or mint?” Joe keeps going. “But mint doesn’t combine well with any of the fruity toppings…”

“You’re a fruity topping,” Patrick says, on autopilot. It’s a childish rejoinder, the kind he learned to toss back at Pete when he was 17, and he doesn’t really notice that he said it until it startles a genuine, loud guffaw out of Joe.

“I suppose I’ve topped a fruit or two.” Joe leans in close to say it, probably just because they’re in public, and he lifts his sunglasses up so Patrick can see his eyebrows bouncing.

Patrick freezes. 

He isn’t supposed to be doing this--that’s the thing. When he came out to Pete, he _promised_. Pete said, “This revelation isn’t about anyone in the band, is it? Because we don’t need any...you know...Fleetwood Mac shit.” And Pete meant Pete, he meant himself, all earnest big eyes, like he was worried Patrick’s bisexuality was Wentz-centric. And Patrick laughed in his face and promised him that it wasn’t about anyone in the band, and maybe they both walked away from that conversation a little bit chagrined.

Patrick had been certain that it was probably the truth, at the time.

Now, though, Patrick wonders if this isn’t how Mick Fleetwood felt--if he ever took Stevie for froyo, if he wanted to lean in and bite her shoulder because he could smell her deodorant and laundry detergent on a hot day, if this isn’t the beginning of the end.

“Are you gonna pay for my froyo?” Joe interrupts his self-flagellation and Patrick startles. They’re at the counter already, and he gets the impression that Joe’s glancing at him out of the corner of his eye, but it’s hard to tell with sunglasses blocking his gaze. He seems pleased, either way, and he chuckles when Patrick nods.

“Yes,” Patrick says, too firmly. It’s a panic reaction, the decisiveness. He feels strangely on the spot about the whole transaction, like it means something, and Joe turns his grin toward the ground when Patrick pulls his wallet out of his pants and then can’t get his credit card out of the sticky little pocket without a lot of fumbling and one library card corner sliding too deep under his thumbnail. He feels like he’s in high school again.

“Godammit,” he says, after he’s paid, shoving his thumb in his mouth to quell the sting.

“Hey, thanks.” Joe knocks their shoulders together, and Patrick looks sheepishly down at the ground, thumb still in his mouth like an infant until he yanks it out and shoves both hands in his pockets, trying to look cool and collected, and then immediately pulls one back out to grab his froyo off the counter. He’s a wreck.

He has to get this under control. It’s hormones--it’s nothing.

Joe keeps going with the online thing, has a string of dates after Lissie: Carlos, Sara, Wanda, Matt. None of them make it to date number two, although he stays peppy throughout. 

“I’m meeting interesting people,” he says after Sara shows up in a civil war reenactment costume.

“I’m learning about America’s heartland,” he says with Matt the chicken farmer, in Iowa. “You’re missing out on all the fun, Patrick--you, too, could be out there dating farmers, learning all about sexing a chick over sushi.”

Pete gets so excited to make a joke about Patrick’s chick-sexing knowledge that he just splutters, tripping over his words. Patrick rolls his eyes.

Joe doesn’t see Matt the farmer again, even though he was nice enough. Educational conversation aside, apparently his clothes smelled like chicken shit.

There was nothing wrong with Carlos, as far as Patrick can tell, except that he was just looking to hook up. Patrick immediately needs to go to the ice machine down the hall when Joe shrugs uncomfortably in response to Pete’s hopeful, “Starbucks bathroom handjobs?”, so he leaves the hotel room before he can hear how that story ends. Carlos doesn’t come up again, though.

Wanda is actually a helicopter pilot for a local hospital, and that goes badly when she tries to take Joe up in the air and realizes that he knows nothing about flight, despite what his profile claims. But Joe stays chipper even then, saying, “I got to ride over the Mississippi in a helicopter, and she didn’t even push me out the door like she threatened. And...now it’s less of a lie, because I’ve had a lesson!”

Joe’s endless optimism about all of these random weirdos is probably the most tiring part, if Patrick is honest.

He says as much to Pete, one day, when they’re alone in a cab in New Orleans. “Every date’s a bizarre fiasco, and he just laughs. Meanwhile, I can’t take one more story about how ‘charming’ it was when Nathan or _whoever_ asked for a lock of Joe’s hair for his _collection_ on their _first date_ in a fucking pizza parlor! One day we’re gonna come back to the bus to find some psycho wearing Joe’s skin as a suit, but when I try to tell him that, he launches into his ‘Online Dating is Fun’ speech.”

“That’s fucking gruesome, dude.” Pete looks slightly appalled, and okay, it’s possible Patrick has gotten a little too worked up. He was kind of shouting, and he wipes at the corners of his mouth to check for spittle. “And also, why didn’t _I_ hear about the hair dude?” Pete continues. “If you don’t wanna hear all the crazy details, send him my way.”

“You weren’t there. He told me about Nathan when we went for froyo yesterday. And he told me about the girl with the foot fetish when we went for froyo Monday.”

Pete blinks slowly. “Foot fetish? What?” 

Patrick just shakes his head--he didn’t want to hear about it the first time, and he doesn’t want to revisit it now. 

“Fine,” Pete huffs, “I’ll ask him. And since when do you two go for froyo all the time, anyway?”

Patrick’s shoulders come up a little bit and he shrugs awkwardly. He isn’t sure how it happens--he’s _never_ sure that’s it’s happening until he’s staring at the chalk menu over some hipster cashier’s head. Joe has this sort of stealth way of grabbing Patrick’s attention, and talking to him and walking, and getting in and out of cars while Patrick trails along, and maybe Patrick is a little bit distracted by the faces Joe pulls and the way the light hits his curls but that doesn’t really explain how Joe says, “Hey, whatcha up to?” and then Patrick blinks and they’re in a froyo shop.

It keeps happening, though.

Patrick has started noting it in his spreadsheet, highlighting froyo days, these little spikes in boner-thoughts and hand-holding-thoughts. If he jerks off, he color codes it pink. It’s probably the sugar, making parts of his brain...overactive.

“I don’t know; he keeps suggesting it,” Patrick finally says. Pete’s just staring, and after a moment, Patrick adds, “I think it’s so he can torture me with more tales from OkCupid. He’s still lowkey trying to convince me that _I_ should try it. _Me._ ‘To meet men’, he said.” 

Patrick’s not really expecting Pete to share his indignation--this is Pete, after all--but he’s surprised when he glances over to find Pete with his brow furrowed, staring at pedestrians as they fly past.

“Huh,” Pete says after a beat, and then the line between his brows clears and he starts to smile. “Joe wants you to start dating men?”

“Apparently.” The idea makes Patrick cranky, and he deliberately uncrosses his arms in the hopes that it won’t show.

“He might have a point. I mean, you haven’t really dated in a while...and have you even ever…? I mean--how do you even _know_ , you know?”

Pete is practically nonsensical, but Patrick is sadly following this horrifying line of thought perfectly. He _has_ “even ever”, once at least, and anyway-- “I _know_ , okay? Just--I don’t need Joe pushing me to pimp myself out on the internet to _know_.”

“Huh…” The furrow is back in the middle of Pete’s forehead, aimed at Patrick this time. “I’m not sure that’s what he’s trying to do. But okay, dude. I’m not trying to, like, invalidate your identity.”

Patrick snorts in response, and Pete tips over slowly until the crown of his head is resting gently on Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m an ally, you know,” he says.

“I know,” Patrick says consolingly. It’s not Pete’s fault that Joe wanted Patrick to be his online wingman, or that Joe’s giving out...hair samples...all over the US.

They’re pulling into the driveway in front of their hotel before either of them speaks again. It’s Pete, of course. “I could probably roll with a foot fetish,” he says musingly, tilting his head back to meet Patrick’s eyes. “Was she hot?”

They get to Orlando a week after the hair dude, and they have a hotel night. Patrick has a date with the shower and maybe the Cubs game, but he flops backwards onto the bed, first, arms splayed, enjoying the artificial cool and the fact that the room isn’t moving down the highway--everything is quiet and stationary, and he’s trying to muster up the energy for that shower when there’s a knock on the door.

It’s Joe, Wii tucked under his arm, and he says, “Mario Kart marathon hotel night?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, just brushes past Patrick and busies himself with the Wii console next to the TV. 

Patrick leans against the open door, still facing the empty hallway. “Dude…” he whines, “this is the first _second_ I’ve been alone in a week.”

“Point,” Joe says. He doesn’t stop unfurling the meticulously wrapped Wii power cord, though. “Counterpoint: Mario Kart marathon hotel night.”

Patrick rests his forehead against the cool surface of the door for a moment, despairing, before he remembers a Reader’s Digest article he read about semen in hotel rooms and yanks his head away. He was looking forward to some quiet, but the last two times he‘s wandered over to find Joe on off nights, suggested that they watch a movie or something, he’s found Joe primping and with plans for the evening, so. _Be careful what you wish for_ , he thinks, ignoring the warmth in his chest. He doesn’t move back into the room for another moment, just for form’s sake, then he sighs loudly and says, “Fine, yes. But I’m going to shower first.”

“I’ll have pizza and beer sent up,” Joe mumbles, half-behind the flat screen TV. Then his head pops up. “Oh, if that’s what you meant by _alone time_ ,” he smirks, making a vaguely rude gesture with the remote in his hand, “uh...keep it down.”

Patrick rolls his eyes and tosses a balled up t-shirt at Joe’s head, digging around for his dopp kit.

He takes his sweet time in the shower, figures uninvited guests can sit and wait, and by the time he’s dry and dressed in pjs, he feels human again. There’s pizza on the dresser and Joe has settled on the bed, propped up on three pillows, beer in hand and with Patrick’s laptop open on his knees.

“Who knew there were so many hotties in Orlando?”

Patrick makes a non-committal sound and grabs a beer for himself before padding over and settling next to Joe. He doesn’t lounge quite as much as Joe, sitting up with his back against the headboard, and it leaves him looking down at the top of Joe’s head with the computer screen clearly in his line of sight. He sort of averts his eyes, at first, because it feels invasive, like there’s something private about Joe’s online dating activities.

Then Joe elbows him, saying, “Help me pick someone to date, dude.”

“I’d really rather not.” There are multiple levels to that statement, but Patrick tries to keep it light, adding, “Did you get Mario Kart set up?”

Joe nods, and then clicks on the “next” button, prompting a cascade of new photos to appear on screen. “In a minute,” he says. “C’mon...I’m not having any luck on my own…”

Patrick glances away from the screen and drinks more, and Joe huffs, tilting his head until he’s looking up into Patrick’s face. He blinks a few times, all big eyes and pleading expression and...an unattractive view up Patrick’s nostrils, probably, until Patrick huffs back and shoves at him gently.

“What happened to Special Mario Hotel Night?” Patrick asks, but he’s already reaching for the laptop. He’s been biting his tongue because he’s not masochistic enough to invite more discussion of all the non-Patrick people Joe has been dating, but he can’t help but notice that--for all Joe’s initial lip service about wanting to find real compatibility--dude’s been making terrible choices. Either everyone horribly misrepresents themselves online (possible--Patrick wouldn’t know) or Joe has the mating instincts of a praying mantis (also possible).

So what the hell. He’s curious.

There are men and ladies on the screen, but other than all being human, it’s hard to see any sort of common thread. The first profile picture, for example, is a woman who Patrick suspects is retired and living on social security benefits. She’s followed by a 20-something dude on a dirtbike, and then a Japanese-American single mother.

“Okay, first,” Patrick says, scrolling around, looking for a “settings” button, “No wonder all your dates have been weirdos. Can’t you set some sort of filters? Like--no offense to Muriel there, but is she really what you’re looking for?”

Joe laughs. “She likes to bake in her free time! And she’s Jewish, dude. My mother would love her.”

“Yeah, if they met at bridge club. Not if you brought her home as your new girlfriend.” Patrick finds the advanced search page and skims over the options. “See, you don’t even have an age range set. What kind of approach is this, even?”

“I don’t know, man,” Joe shrugs. “I’m a big-hearted guy. I’ve just been...sending out interest, into the world. I figure the worst that can happen is I’ll meet a lot of interesting guys and dolls, you know? Like...jumping in the deep end isn’t all that bad. _You_ could think about maybe just dipping a toe--”

“Yeah, okay Sinatra,” Patrick cuts him off. “But if it’s not going the way you want, maybe you should start by rethinking your ‘big love’ philosophy--be a little choosier? I mean, have you figured out what you actually _want_?”

Joe’s looking straight at Patrick and he pauses for beat, then looks away to answer. “Yeah. I mean...I think so.”

“Okay…?” Joe doesn’t say anything, seems focused on picking at the near-threadbare knee of Patrick’s pajama pants. Patrick manfully ignores it even though it tickles...or something like tickling. “So, you’re on the Enterprise, programming your perfect relationship into the holodeck. What are you looking for?”

It startles Joe into laughing and he rubs one hand over his face. “Oh, dude...if I could program anything I wanted? You have no idea.”

Patrick snorts as he considers his own hypothetical question; the possibilities spin out before him and then slowly narrow in on Joe. He tries not to blush, shakes his head like he can chase the thought away. Moving on. “Close to your age, presumably?”

Joe’s still covering his eyes, and he drops his hand at that, clears his throat. “Yeah, sure.”

“Okay. There we go.”

Patrick rattles off a list of further criteria to narrow down Joe’s choices: with kids? No kids? Straight? Gay? Bi? Joe answers, Patrick clicks, and eventually they’re left looking at a much more appropriate selection of potential dates.

“Okay,” Patrick says. “What about...Lauren?” Her profile photo shows a pretty girl, curly haired and on horseback, with strikingly big blue eyes. She and Joe would probably have beautiful kids, Patrick thinks bitterly, while Joe skims her bio. They’d buy a ranch somewhere. Joe would start wearing even more flannel, and call everybody ‘hoss’ and Patrick gets _asthma attacks_ around _hay_ , okay, he wouldn’t even be able to visit them, and their kids would call him Uncle City Slicker, probably, or something meaner and cleverer. 

“Meh,” Joe says, eventually.

“ _Meh_?” Patrick repeats, disbelievingly, even as the mental image of himself falling off a horse mid-sneeze fades from his mind. But still--“Muriel got a better reaction than this girl? She’s cute! And age-appropriate!”

“Yeah, but she says her hobby is ‘hanging out’. Like...really? That’s all she could come up with?” Patrick doesn’t see the problem with ‘hanging out’--Joe burst into this very hotel room this very evening to insist on hanging out--so he keeps up the skeptical side-eye. 

After a moment, Joe shrugs and looks away, down at his fingers which start fiddling with the hem of Patrick’s t-shirt, near his hip, pleating it up and then smoothing it out. “That’s so...uninspired. I like someone who’s got _interests_ , you know? Someone who’s got their own thing going on that they’re passionate about.” He catches himself and pulls his hand away from Patrick’s waist.

Patrick blinks three times before he can think of a response that is _at all_ germane to the conversation. “She’s sitting on a horse…” he eventually offers. “Maybe that’s her hobby?”

“Livestock?” Joe says, wrinkling his nose. “Meh.”

Patrick backs them out of Lauren’s profile. “Okay,” he says, fighting for even-toned and maybe hitting dazed, at best. “Passionate about interests. No livestock. Noted.”

Joe isn’t looking at the computer screen, he’s watching Patrick, and Patrick reaches clumsily for his beer and tries to break the tension in his gut with a big gulp. He’s helping a friend, here--he shouldn’t react to that with lecherous thoughts just because his thigh is pressed against Joe’s side.

He puts his beer down and pulls back a bit, resettling the laptop between them and moving the cursor to someone named Brian next--Brian is wearing a tie in his profile pic and standing in front of a shiny black car. 

His bio seems promising at first, and Patrick is all business about evaluating it, because he is being a good friend and not a weirdo perv. Brian is a banker, 27 years old, and he mentions salsa dancing three times in two paragraphs. Patrick can’t really picture Joe learning Latin ballroom, but it probably passes the hobbies test. The very last line, though, says, _looking for a leather daddy_ , and Patrick reads it twice and then clears his throat loudly.

“Um…” he says, aiming for tactful. The giggles are seeping out, though. “So...what do you think?”

Joe elbows him, catching him in the hip. “Probably not.”

“I didn’t want to assume!” Patrick laughs. “I mean, you could have this whole...salsa dancing, assless chaps other life that I don’t know about…”

“Do you really think I’d keep that to myself?” Joe asks, grinning up at Patrick. “I mean... _you_ could have a secret, kinky second life. If _I_ did, there’d be pictures of me in a harness at Pride on the internet.”

Just for the hell of it, Patrick throws out, “There _were_ almost scandalous pictures of me at a pride parade, once.” He’s a rockstar, after all--he’s gotta be able to keep up with the Brians of the world.

Joe pulls his head back to give Patrick a raised eyebrow, somewhat shocked and expectant, and Patrick caves. “Pete,” he says, shrugging. Joe laughs, and Patrick continues. “I was, like...17, maybe? I think it would have been child porn,” and Joe goes from a goofy leer to a horrified grimace in the blink of an eye.

“Jesus,” he says. “Now _leather daddy_ sounds even less attractive.”

Patrick smirks. “Okay. No members of leather subculture. Got it.” Patrick hits the back button.

“I mean, in _general_ it’s fine,” Joe stresses. “It’s not a dealbreaker for me.” He’s frowning thoughtfully at the screen. “But if it’s important enough to Brian to mention it in his profile, I’m probably not who he’s looking for, long-term. You know?”

That gives Patrick pause, just for a split second, and he covers the way his fingers stutter on the trackpad by using that hand to rub at his eye, under his glasses. “Are you looking for something long-term?”

Joe goes still, and then sits up, so they’re pressed shoulder to shoulder. “Yeah,” he says, after a pause. “I mean, in an ideal world. I just want something real, you know? With someone who gets me, someone I’m comfortable with. Someone who balances me out, maybe. Practical. Focused.”

Joe is casting him unsure little sidelong glances, and Patrick ducks his head. He has _feelings_ about that--lots of squirmy, complicated feelings--and he doesn’t want Joe to read them on his face. “That makes sense. I just...I don’t think you’re going to find that in Orlando--I mean, the potential for something long term. Why not target, like...LA and Chicago?”

“I thought about it.” Joe runs a hand through his hair. “Is that what you would do?”

Patrick is taken aback by the question. “I guess?” he answers, eventually. “I mean, I don’t really see myself doing the online dating thing, like--at any point. Not that there’s anything wrong with it,” he shrugs, uncomfortable, “but I just…”

“You’re a slow-build kinda guy,” Joe offers, and Patrick chuckles at how completely, sadly true that is. He doesn’t meet new people he wants to date; he knows people for years and then ends up doing math about them.

Joe doesn’t keep talking--he’s still looking at Patrick out of the sides of his eyes, and Patrick glances away and then back. “I always figured I’d probably meet someone a little closer to home,” he finally says, quieter. “You know...at work, or through friends...I think that’s more my speed, probably.”

“I always thought--” Joe starts, and then cuts himself off and laughs. Patrick shoots him a questioning glance. “Okay, you know Justin? The lighting kid on the Honda thing, last year? I kinda thought you two maybe…” Joe wiggles his eyebrows, and when Patrick doesn’t react, he puckers his lips, complete with smooching sounds. When Patrick _still_ doesn’t react, Joe’s mouth movements get a lot more...lewd.

It’s distracting.

“What?!” Patrick says, finally, a little dazed, “No!”

“No, I know. I mean--I figured. But I was kinda waiting for him to make a move on you, dude.”

“Really?” Patrick regrets the eager pitch of his voice immediately, but he can’t even blush about it because: _really_? He hadn’t been particularly attracted to Justin, besides noticing his lovely, broad shoulders, but...he’s only human.

“Really,” Joe assures him, laughing. “I think he was about one week from offering to be your test run.”

The idea is flattering, but Joe’s wording sort of takes the wind out of Patrick’s sails. “Not this shit again, dude,” he sighs. “You and Pete, man. I don’t need a _test run_. Like--is it so hard to believe that I know what I want?”

Joe isn’t laughing anymore, and Patrick can’t see his face. He’s picking at a sticker on the laptop keyboard with his thumb. “Really?” he asks, voice soft.

“ _Really_.” Patrick makes his voice as firm as he can. “I have taken and passed the entrance exam of the boner-for-dudes club, okay? I just didn’t send out an engraved notification, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what I want. I’m good.”

“Okay.” Joe sounds a little stunned, and he looks back up at Patrick’s face, eyes searching for a moment. Then his voice lightens again and he says, “Well, I’m still surprised you and Justin never hooked up. He seemed like he’d be perfect for you--crazy serious little guy, you know? Bossy. All about his ‘craft’ or whatever. And he didn’t _not_ look like Prince.”

Patrick squints disbelievingly and shakes his head. Justin _didn’t_ look like Prince, and anyway--”I don’t need to date another _me_. I’m more looking for someone, you know...complementary. Someone more...light-hearted or...I don’t know. Someone who can bring more fun to my life, you know?”

“You’re fun!” Joe protests with real vigor, like he’s genuinely offended on Patrick’s behalf. The intensity makes Patrick rear back a little bit to avoid beer-in-hand gesticulating. “Look,” and there goes Joe’s arm, flung out toward the TV, “we’re about to have Mario Kart marathon hotel night. That’s fun!”

“Yeah, but it was your idea,” Patrick points out. It _is_ his idea of fun, though, so he doesn’t mention that it’s probably lame by rockstar standards. “I was going to watch the Cubs game and fall asleep with my glasses on, if left to my own devices. _You_ brought Mario Kart marathon hotel night to my door and forced your way in.” Patrick says it practically, not a hint of accusation in his voice, so he’s surprised when Joe looks sheepish.

“I mean,” Joe says, and his voice is a little softer, “I don’t want you to burn yourself out and, like, this last leg you’ve been pretty intense...I thought maybe I could bring some fun. To your life. You know?”

Joe is unnaturally still, voice getting quieter as he talks, and there’s a tiny blush, high on his cheeks. Patrick’s eyes are stuck on it. He feels guilty, suddenly, because maybe he’s made Joe feel bad for interrupting his stupid baseball plans, so he says, “You did. Exactly.”

Joe slides his head forward, this tiny _and?_ gesture, and he’s half-smiling but his gaze is searching, like he’s waiting for Patrick to _get it_ , whatever it is. Like something’s supposed to click inside Patrick’s head. 

Patrick just stares back. Joe is trying to tell him something, but he doesn’t know what, and they’re sitting really pretty close together, pressed up tight on a hotel bed with pizza getting cold on the dresser because Joe was worried that he’s been too serious lately...and, _oh_ , Patrick thinks. _Oh_ , here he is prattling on about his ideal lover, or whatever, when they haven’t actually even touched the Wii--and Joe’s gone out of his way and even gotten beer and pizza. 

Patrick claps his hands together, and it’s too sudden, jarring in the quiet room, but he wants to seem appreciative, and he says, “So, like...Mario special pizza hotel night, right? Let’s do this thing!” He reaches for the Wii controller and then grins back at Joe, who has his head hanging down, chin on his chest. He’s laughing, though, and he shakes his head and looks up and sighs, big, then says, “Dude…” He shakes his head again and rolls his eyes. “I call Princess Peach.”

The character negotiations take 10 minutes after that, and by the time he leaves, Joe is tipsy and smiling, and even though Patrick swears a lot when he loses, he thinks he’s properly conveyed his appreciation for Mario Super Marathon night.


	2. Chapter 2

After all of Patrick’s selfless work to tighten up Joe’s match criteria, Joe seems to slow down the OkCupid thing. Patrick’s not sure if he’s waiting until LA, secretly hopes he’s not, feels happy to have Joe close and not out meeting his future passionate, practical spouse, feels terribly guilty about his happiness, and develops mood swings. Or--more mood swings than normal. Joe-specific mood swings. (More than normal.)

Pete is an annoying fuck who can’t let Patrick have a feeling without a news brief. They keep touring, time on the bus and time backstage, hotels and food service tables and Pete gets more and more terrier-like as they go. Patrick will have a Joe-related mood and Pete’s head will pop up, alert, like a Jack Russell who just heard a rat in the weeds or Hemmy when you say the d-i-n-n-e-r word.

The walls are closing in and Patrick doesn’t have the constitution to play Jean Valjean to Pete’s Javert--as a child, Patrick would get nervous playing hide-and-seek and preemptively turn himself in when he saw feet under the closet door. So when Pete says, “Oh, look, I got my hands on this bottle of great whiskey,” and “Patrick, I miss you; come to my bus--let’s catch up tonight,” Patrick says, “Oh, thank God, yes.” He can’t live with the sweats about it anymore--and anyway, Pete’s already guessed everything, probably...that’s the mindfuck of Pete.

If Pete didn’t know that Patrick was ready to confess, he might be startled by the gusto with which Patrick tackles the whiskey. As it is, he sips his, neat, while Patrick slams a shot.

“Okay,” Patrick says after number two, sloshing number three into his juice glass and eyeballing it critically. “I’m ready.”

“Patrick,” Pete says, resting his chin on his hand, all contemplative pretense, “Whatever do you mean? Ready for what?” He laughs like a fucking maniac when Patrick makes to throw a stale bagel at him, then catches it out of mid-air. “Hey, no, this is my breakfast tomorrow.”

Patrick slowly lowers his head to rest against the backs of his hands on the tabletop. He does it in increments, like a geriatric nodding off, and sighs while he does it, just so Pete knows that he’s exhausted by all of this. Pete laughs again, kinder this time, and reaches over to tug Patrick’s cap off when the brim impedes his descent.

“So, Joe…” Pete says. Patrick groans. “Come on, Rickster...you’ve got a little thing for Joe, huh? A little crush? Some of those Mills and Boon, romance on the high seas, Fabio on the cover type feelings? You wanna send him a valentine?” Pete’s voice is sing-songy, teasing, and he doesn’t mean anything by it because Patrick is supposed to nod and then Pete will switch right over to 100% supportive best friend and brainstorm or commiserate as the situation dictates. That’s the script.

But Patrick has been sitting on this for a while, and he’s annoyed, _annoyed_ , at the way Pete’s making it sound juvenile when he has fucking data about this shit; he has a _spreadsheet_ , which is very adult. 

So Patrick breaks from the script and he sits up, slams shot number three, looks Pete dead in the eyes and says, raw-throated, “I’m, like...basically _burning_ for him.”

It’s an embarrassingly earnest and terribly naked statement, with nothing to hide behind, and Patrick is flushing bright red before he’s even finished. But it’s worth feeling his skin itch at the bald truth of it for the way Pete’s eyes go huge and shocky and he drops the bagel right onto the floor.

Then Patrick’s courage flees and he lets his head fall back to the table.

“Jesus,” Pete says, shocked. Patrick nods against the tabletop but doesn’t comment, so Pete continues. “Fucking hell, Ric…” He’s shaking his head, now, almost smiling, like Patrick’s a hopeless cause but that’s...good, somehow. Then he rubs at his forehead and kind of laughs. “Fucking hell.”

“I knoooow,” Patrick groans. “I know, okay?” Then he glares up at Pete because the idiot looks almost amused when everything about this is terrible, and Pete is usually better at his Patrick-related duties than this. “It’s _awful_ ,” he says, over-enunciating the word. Pete started this whole trainwreck confessional of a conversation, and he needs to get on board.

“Is it?” Pete counters immediately, because it’s his job to convince Patrick that terrible ideas are good ones--and, hey, at least that’s a return to form.

Patrick flips him the bird, then turns his head to the side because the formica is getting clammy under his open mouth. “It’s so bad,” he laments, shaking his head at his own fucking stupidity, making the arm of his glasses bump against the table. “So bad.”

“Sounds like it,” Pete says. “I thought you were still in the _eek! It’s a penis!_ stage of this whole thing, and I was gonna make you blush with lurid tales-from-the-next-bunk about Joe’s sex toy collection. But... _burning_. Dude...now my plan seems cruel.”

And Patrick hates himself because he wants to know about the sex toys, desperately; he’s _dying_ to know, and he hates Pete, too, because underneath his genuine sympathy, Pete _can tell_ , the bastard. He has this smirky, knowing look in his eyes while Patrick sits up and pours another whiskey.

They sit in silence for a minute, and Patrick is wishing that he’d done some pre-drinking, that he was drunker, because now that he’s confessed, he’s ready to save face and pretend this conversation never happened. There’s no chance of that, though, and eventually Pete sighs and says, “Have you thought about maybe telling him?”

Patrick echoes Pete’s sigh and drinks his whiskey. He doesn’t exactly gulp it, but the first swallow hits his throat too fast and all wrong, and he wheezes, trying to get air in around his now-spasming windpipe. By the time he can answer, he’s glaring, and it feels unhinged, like he’s lost all semblance of chill, with his face red and his eyes watery. He clears his throat and modulates his voice, aiming for some semblance of composed. “That isn’t a smart idea. And I am being smart about this. I have a spreadsheet _and_ an equation, and granted, they’re not predictive data, but nothing about any of my research indicates that telling Joe is the smart move, here. So no. I haven’t thought about telling him.”

Pete is rolling his eyes before Patrick finishes talking, and as soon as he can get a word in, he says, “And what did your old therapist say about your spreadsheet habit, again?”

Patrick blinks. It’s checkmate, unless he’s going to lie. He lies. “She said ‘A+ work.’”

“Really? Because I thought she said it was a pseudo-logical, masturbatory diversion from dealing with uncertainty.”

“She didn’t say that,” Patrick insists, even though it _was_ the gist. But, still, “Dr. Nelson was nicer than you.”

Pete closes his eyes for a long moment and then throws back the entire contents of his whiskey glass, which is a good sign. It means he’s reaching the end of his meager tolerance for frustration and he’s probably about to give up on the whole conversation. He tries one more time, though. “Patrick,” he says, in a very measured tone, “I know you don’t believe it, but I am being very nice to you right now when I tell you that you should talk to Joe.”

Patrick doesn’t mention the spreadsheet or the relative niceness of Pete--he’s run out of diversionary tactics, so he tells the simple truth. “I can’t. It’s fucking...terrifying.” Just the thought has his fingers shaking, and he shoves his hands in his lap to hide them. He’s not fast enough; Pete watches him do it and his eyes soften, turn serious, and Patrick knows that he can see it now, if he didn’t get it before--the shadowy outline of the mountain of Patrick’s feelings, how big it is, how it dominates the horizon, dwarfs everything. Patrick looks away and clears his throat. “I’m just not ready,” he adds, trying to turn it back into a molehill.

For a moment, Patrick’s not sure Pete is going to let him; Pete’s forehead is wrinkled and he scratches at his jaw, thinking, before he opens his mouth. Patrick braces for more emotional excavation, but what Pete actually says is, “Do you want me to find you a look-a-like to fuck it out with?”

It’s gross, because it’s a joke, but the idea gives him a little thrill anyway--not the look-a-like part, just...even the roundabout thought of fucking it out with Joe. Patrick drinks more whiskey and tries not to descend into total depravity, to see Pete’s suggestion for what it is. It’s a hall pass on the conversation; it’s a kindness, and Patrick takes it. “I’m booked Tuesdays and Thursdays with an Ashlee Simpson impersonator. But if you can find a Trohman who works weekends, sure.” 

It’s the kind of stupid shit Pete always laughs at, and he laughs now. Patrick swipes the bottle and pours himself another shot. Then, because his heart is still in his throat, he tops it up a little more. Pete has veered into a story about celebrities who want to bang his girlfriend, which is a topic he enjoys more than Patrick probably would, and Patrick fakes laughing in the right spots and drinks fast until he’s really laughing.

He doesn’t really remember the rest. 

In Houston, Joe stands in the middle of the dressing room and says, “Am I just unattractive?” arms spread, in his fucking underwear without a shirt, and Patrick’s adult resolve about this whole situation is absolutely shredding to bits. His gaze kind of stutters between nipples and happy trail until Pete brushes past him, phone in hand, and whispers, “Breathe, dude.”

Patrick spins around and tries to will his eyes back into their sockets before casually sinking into an armchair. 

Andy says, “I’m not qualified,” the jerk, and all eyes turn to Patrick, the other certified queer in the room, who manages to say, “No, you’re...fine,” without sounding like he’s choking on his tongue.

Pete sniggers, in the corner talking to Ashlee on his cell, watching Patrick and whispering, maybe narrating this whole encounter. Patrick glares quellingly. Or how he imagines a quelling glare looks--it doesn’t seem to work.

“Fine?” Joe asks. “Fine?” He’s frowning at Patrick, now, coming closer, and Patrick wants to stand back up so his eyes aren’t at...underpants-region height, but that would be awkward. He cranes his head instead. “Fine, like... _meh_?” Joe shrugs to illustrate. “That kind of fine?” He’s laughing through the frown, but the thing is, well...Patrick knows that maybe he’s actually a little bit sensitive about the whole distracting nipple/happy trail package. For no reason, but still.

So Patrick backtracks. “No,” he says shaking his head as earnestly as he can manage with Joe’s underpants-region coming closer and closer. “No, the other fine. Like... _fiiiiine_.” He tries to put a little R&B into it and Andy snorts.

“He said _fiiiiine_ ,” Pete is saying in the background. “You’re missing _everything_.”

It would be mortifying, but Joe’s laugh is genuine now, and Patrick keeps talking. Well. It’s more like singing, this time. “You are fine,” he intones jokily, grinning back up at Joe. “You’re filthy cute and baby you know it.”

“Oh my god,” Pete groans into his phone, “he’s singing Prince, I swear to God,” but Patrick’s really just enjoying the way Joe’s whole face beams when he laughs. And maybe the way his abs move. A little bit.

“Damn straight,” Joe says. “I am a fine, filthy cute, short Jewish man, Patrick.”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Feel this.” Joe leans forward, flexing his arm. “Go on, feel it. 100% muscle. Man meat.”

Patrick laughs but leans away. “No thanks, dude. I believe you.”

“Patrick,” Joe says, leaning forward, “feel it. You know you want to. Your mouth says no, but your eyes say yes.” He keeps bouncing his eyebrows around, goofing at lascivious.

Patrick grins. “Is that what you say to your dates, dude? Because...kinda creepy. Maybe that’s why it’s not working out.” He reaches up and squeezes at Joe’s arm, just once, so it’s clear he’s teasing.

Joe flexes his muscle, though. Patrick’s thumb is on the soft skin of the inside of his bicep, and they touch each other all the time, but it’s different, feeling Joe’s muscles bunch and slide under his palm. There’s something animal about it, and it makes Patrick hot under the collar, literally, as a prickle of something--a flush, sweat--breaks out across the nape of his neck and under his arms. Joe’s looking directly at Patrick, leaning over him, and he looks stunned, too, just for a split second until Pete’s voice drifts in.

“Hey, am I 100% man meat?” He’s asking Ashlee, presumably, but it breaks the moment and Patrick snatches his hand back. Joe maintains eye contact, still wide-eyed, before he smiles slowly and then winks at Patrick, quick, before straightening up.

“That’s right!” Joe says, victorious. “100% man meat. You felt it. You know.” He turns to face Andy, offering his muscle for inspection, and Patrick takes the reprieve from the whole frontal show to push himself out of his chair.

“I’m gonna change,” he says to the room, and buries his head in his bag while the conversation moves on. 

Later, right before they go on, Pete corners him. “Stump,” he murmurs, leaning close to be heard over the noise of the crowd. “Singing Prince. You little flirt.” His tone is almost admiring, but Patrick flushes bright red anyways.

So Patrick’s become an amoral, shameless, masochistic pervert. But it’s fine, because in between Joe’s continued musings about his love life and Patrick’s insane jerking off (really, letting go of the guilt set a whole bunch of deeply-buried thoughts free--like, just a _whole bunch_ ) they play more Mario Kart and Joe smokes up. 

It turns out that Joe likes to just...noodle around on his guitar. Patrick’s not sure he ever knew that before, really, that Joe plucks out tunes and sings in hotel rooms. Of course, he knew that Joe _practices_ , but that’s not the same. 

It starts in Denver; Patrick knocks on Joe’s hotel room door even though the security bolt is thrown so the door is only nominally closed, and Joe calls out, “Come in.” 

The Wii is already set up next to the television but Joe is intent on the guitar in his lap, and Patrick grabs a beer and settles in the desk chair. Joe is fucking around, at first, maybe working on some fingering, and Patrick starts playing with his phone while he waits. Then the song Joe’s been plucking slowly resolves itself into Aerosmith, and Patrick is humming along before he recognizes it consciously, _craaaazy for you baby_ , and Joe looks up and grins, fucking effortlessly cool and a bonafide rockstar, and the whole situation is like every high school wet dream Patrick didn’t know he was having about boys back then, with the eye contact and the fucking private, soulful playing.

Patrick’s cheeks are getting red, for sure, and he wants to look away but Joe keeps going and he keeps _humming_ , despite the fact that it’s clearly in his own best interests to put an end to this sort of musical collaboration. It’s giving him _ideas._ He feels like Angela Chase, watching Jordan Catalano’s band practice and reading into it, thinking that it means something, and he’s probably going to end up crying on Rickie’s shoulder later, he knows this, but in the moment he can feel his own gaze softening, a stupid, probably infatuated smile pulling at the edges of his lips. And the devil inside of his head is urging him to _sing along_ , like he’s going to look Joe in the eyes, alone with only a hotel bed between them, and serenade him.

It only happens once or twice more, and it’s disastrous. Patrick is _living for it_ , on the one hand, obviously, but he wants to die at the same time--or maybe not die, exactly, but he’d like it if he wasn’t the type of person who drifted off to sleep three days in a row daydreaming about Joe spooning up behind him just because Joe played part of “Lovesong” by The Cure one afternoon on the bus. 

Like so many before him, Patrick ends up facing the brutal reality of his life in Vegas. He wakes up the morning of their show, in his room at the Palms, disoriented. It’s 8:30, still properly morning and way too early for Patrick to be up, but there’s this heavy feeling, something trying to wiggle up from his still-sleepy subconscious--he knows, instinctively, that if he lets it break the surface he’ll be awake for real. He rolls over and drags his half-numb arm from under the pillow, resettles and takes a deep breath, trying to push himself back into sleep.

It almost works--it really almost works, but as soon as he lets his guard down, lets his brain start floating back toward dreamland, the thought slams into him: _last night_ followed closely by Joe’s face, the confusion in his eyes and the way his smile was fading when he reached out to touch Patrick’s shoulder in the elevator at 2am, asking if Patrick was okay.

 _Fucking hell_. His stomach sinks and his eyes fly open--there’s no chance he’s getting back to sleep now.

There’s a series of texts from Pete, sent at 3:30am: _we’re downstairs come have a drink_ followed closely by _this cocktail bar is swanky put on a fedora and come down_ and then _do i like a sazerac?_ Then nothing for awhile, and at 4:42am _i do like a sazerac make a note_ , followed by a picture of at least 7 empty highball glasses with discarded lemon rinds in each.

Fucking Pete, the whole thing started last night with him, and Patrick hopes he’s awake and feeling shitty, too--ideally with his head over the toilet.

Pete got excited, rolling into Vegas, every time. And every time he'd end their stay extracting promises from the rest of the band that they'd keep him from making similar bad decisions on future visits--there was a list of venues that Patrick was charged with keeping Pete out of, including (but not limited to): XS Nightclub, the minus5 Ice Bar, the rides at the top of the Stratosphere, and the Gold Coast Bowling Center on Flamingo. Usually, Patrick half-asses this responsibility--he's been known to head out with Pete in Vegas, but he rarely heads back with Pete. Nights out with Pete are a pendulum swing, and Patrick has a nose for the exact moment that the rising fun is about to reach critical mass and freefall backwards into chaos. He tends to bail right before someone pukes on the hood of a cop car or accidentally kidnaps a stripper.

This time, Patrick couldn't bear the thought of a night in Vegas at all, not even just the fun bits--it's been an exhausting tour and he's tired, not to mention afraid that after a few drinks he'll end up spilling his guts about the whole spreadsheet thing to Andy (or worse, to Joe himself).

Pete was on him for the full 24 hours leading up to their arrival, insisting that Patrick's fedora was his lucky charm at the tables (it wasn't), and that toasting the tour at Franklin Bar was a band tradition (also untrue), and he was getting close to wearing Patrick down with promises that they'd go see the sharks at Mandalay Bay when Joe piped up to save the day.

"Actually, Patrick already promised he'd go see this local band out in Henderson with me."

Patrick had squinted at him, behind Pete's back, confused, and Joe just winked.

"Henderson?" Pete whined. "Why the fuck are you gonna spend our one free night in Vegas in the suburbs?"

"I wanna see this band, dude. They're supposed to be killer. I mean, you could come if you want..." 

Patrick thought it was an ingenious tactic on Joe's part--as much as Pete didn't want half the band to bail on his Vegas plans in favor of a show in Henderson, he'd want to join them even less.

Joe was grinning smugly when Pete gave up and sulked away, and Patrick was grinning, too, about to say, "Thanks man, I really just want to spend the evening in my pjs," but Joe cut him off before he could.

"So, eight o'clock?" he said.

"Wait--there's really a show?" Joe nodded, and Patrick was torn--on the one hand, he really did just want to collapse in his bed, but on the other...Joe was looking up at Patrick through his eyelashes, almost hopeful. "I don't wanna crash your night, or whatever."

Joe shifted uncomfortably. "I mean, I was gonna ask you anyway, you know...I just hadn't gotten around to it." He looked embarrassed at offering Patrick what seemed to be basically a pity invite, and Patrick said _no really_ , trying to wave away the idea that his feelings were hurt, and Joe said _no really_ , insisting that he didn't mind it if Patrick joined him, and just to get them out of that cycle of polite denials, Patrick didn't mention his own sweatpants-and-TV dream for the evening and ended up agreeing to go to some local band’s gig. In Henderson. Which wouldn’t have happened if Pete, for fucking once in his life, had just taken no for an answer the first time.

So really, it was all Pete's fault.

Patrick burrows down into the bedding and doesn't move for a long time, except to turn on the television. The only thing on is "The Price Is Right", which makes the whole morning feel like a sick day, and the fact that his stomach actually lurches when he thinks about the previous night contributes to the illusion.

At 10:45 he gets a text from Joe: _u up? want anything from Starbucks?_

He ignores it, which is petty, even though Joe will absolutely believe that Patrick is still asleep. He simply can't face interacting with Joe at all--just the thought of him, of seeing him--and _god_ , they have a show tonight so it's unavoidable, and there's this panicky gremlin clawing its way up the back of Patrick's throat just imagining it.

It's the same anxiety gremlin that's lived with Patrick since he a was kid; the same feeling as watching the hours tick away on Sunday night and knowing you couldn’t avoid school tomorrow, except 1,000 times bigger and scarier. It's late though--it's at least 15 hours too late to do any good at all, because if the gremlin had shown up last night to warn him, maybe that feeling of impending doom would have convinced Patrick to cancel the whole evening. Instead, he wasn't even on his guard; he wasn't even paying attention.

He had just been so tired, at first, just bone-deep exhausted from the tour. It was nice, though, to get into the passenger seat of some borrowed Mazda and let Joe drive them away from the crazy lights of the strip, past the airport and the business district and into neighborhoods where normal people were eating normal dinners. He hadn't been sure he had the stamina for a show, but at least he got to watch Joe's hands on the steering wheel, the way his wrists flexed when he course corrected, the way his thumb found a seam in the leather and rubbed it back and forth. It was almost hypnotic.

The club was tiny and dingy, about to breach the standing room only threshold, but Joe found them a table in the back, pushed against a wall, and brought them drinks from the bar. They chatted until the lights went down and the band started playing, and even then Patrick kept up a steady stream of idle musings about their own staging until maybe the third song. The opening riff was familiar, and he looked away from the damp cardboard coaster he was picking at and tilted his head like a dog.

"Hey," he said, smiling, glancing over at Joe. "Hey, I know this song..."

Joe was already smiling back at him. "No shit, dude," he said, chuckling a little. Then he scratched at his chin and leaned closer so he didn't have to shout. "You mentioned them to me a while ago--then I saw they were playing tonight, so..." he shrugged.

And this is where Patrick's memory becomes untrustworthy. He said, "Aw, thanks, man. That's really--this is really awesome." The singer was wailing, getting louder, and he'd leant even closer to be heard. He's sure about that part.

Joe had bumped their shoulders together, heads bent close over the table. He said, "I mean, I just kind of wanted to do something fun, you know. With you."

At the time, Patrick had just grinned and bumped their shoulders back, and Joe's hand had brushed against the denim on the outside of his thigh when Patrick shifted to settle back into his seat and watch the band. He hadn't thought anything of it, then. Not really.

Now, though, watching Drew Carey explain Plinko, he can almost imagine that there had been something in Joe's eyes, when he tacked on that "with you". Something hopeful, maybe nervous. He could almost imagine that the backs of Joe's fingers had lingered for a moment on his leg, that it had been deliberate...a statement, even.

If he closes his eyes, he can see it that way, perfectly clearly. And then pragmatism sets in and the tentative hope in Joe’s eyes fades back to friendly warmth, and the anxiety gremlin starts squeezing his lungs again.

Maybe Patrick can convince Pete to sing tonight so he doesn’t have to leave this room. If Pete wore a wig and a cap pulled down far enough and they piped in the vocals, no one would know. Of course, then there’d be no Pete, but James the tech could probably manage a Pete impersonation, if _he_ wore a wig. It could stop there--the audience wouldn’t notice a lack of James, so they’d only need two wigs and a little bit of moxie to pull the whole thing off.

He texts the idea to Pete, who doesn’t ask for an explanation. _I’m in,_ he sends back. _As soon as i stop puking i’ll start planning my Patrick patter._ For a moment, Patrick tells himself that the whole thing is sorted; he’s off the hook, and the delusion almost lessens the shaky feeling in his stomach, just briefly. Then Pete texts again: _r u more likely to call ur dick ur hambone or ur dogbone? I need to know for authenticity._

The illusion shatters. There’s nothing for it--it’s almost one in the afternoon and The Price is Right has given way to reruns of CSI and they have a show to play.

Patrick takes a shower, and as miserable as he is, his dick isn’t sure it’s gotten the message--Pete’s nonsense plus a stray thought about a blowjob in that borrowed Mazda is enough to rev up his libido, and he rushes through cleaning himself before blasting the cold water. For the first time in weeks, he feels way too guilty to jerk off over Joe.

Sound check is torture. Patrick has one of his biggest-brimmed trucker hats on, pulled low, and a hoodie pulled up over that, but people still insist on trying to talk to him. The guys are mostly distracted with work--it’s not really social time, and for a brief minute, Patrick thinks he’s going to get away with keeping his head down and sticking to the technical details.

Joe approaches him before they even really start, though. He looks as well-rested as Patrick isn’t, easy smile on his face and a tiny, concerned wrinkle forming between his brows as he reaches out to thump Patrick’s upper arm.

Patrick freezes up slightly, just an instinctive little jerk away from Joe’s hand, and then Joe jerks away, too. “Hey,” he says, dropping his hand awkwardly before it makes contact, “you okay?”

“Yeah,” Patrick says. He’s pushing really hard for normal and his voice just about hits it, breezy and pleasant. But every time his eyes catch on Joe’s he can feel himself staring, too intense somehow, and he ends up jerking them away, only to look back a moment later. After a few awkward seconds, he settles on looking vaguely over Joe’s right shoulder. “Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know...you didn’t get back to me earlier, and just...I don’t know.” Joe shoves both hands in the pockets of his shorts and rocks back on his heels a bit. “I wanted to make sure it wasn’t the tacos or something.” He tries a smile again.

Patrick smiles back. Sort of. It feels pained. “Nah,” he says to Joe’s earlobe, “I’m fine. I mean--just didn’t sleep all that well, I guess.” He shrugs and shifts his weight back the tiniest bit, like he’s about to turn away, back to work.

“Ah, sorry dude.” 

Joe still looks confused and Patrick knows he’s acting weird--Joe can probably pick up on how uncomfortable he is loud and clear. Still he can’t seem to help it--especially now that he’s remembering the fucking tacos, the parking lot, the music--and so he just shrugs. Joe at least seems to accept the insomnia excuse and pats him on the shoulder, making contact this time, before walking away.

Last night, when the show ended, they had followed the sweaty crowd out into the moderately cooler night air, onto the street and back toward the Mazda. Joe stopped before he opened the car door, keys jingling in his hand-- “You hungry?” he asked across the roof. “I hear there’s a great taco truck nearby.” And Patrick was distracted from good music, live, and he’d almost forgotten that he wanted to stay in tonight, and he said yes.

Joe had heard right; it was a great taco truck, out on the edge of the city, and they took three wrong turns down industrial streets, past pitch black warehouses, before they found it. There was a brewery in a commercial, steel-sided garage with seating outside and a few locals sipping beer, a game of cornhole, fairy lights. The food truck was parked across the street in a dirt parking lot next to a few picnic tables and some scrappy weeds poking up through the gravel.

Truckside, Patrick said, “Probably whatever’s the least spicy for me--my voice,” and Joe nodded. The guy inside the window made a suggestion, but Patrick didn’t catch the details over the blaring Spanish music--a local radio station, judging from the ads.

Joe leaned in and said, “Yelp says that’s the best, anyway,” and he just nodded.

They took their tacos and sat at one of the tables, and Patrick moaned over the food--just the right balance of crisp red onions on top of rich, tomatoey sauce. A woman was singing on the radio--obviously a live performance, something slow and melodic that sounded like _muy lento_ , over and over. When Joe grinned, licking salsa off his thumb, and said, “I think it’s tongue, actually-- _lengua_ ,” Patrick thought he was talking about the song at first, that that’s what she was saying. 

When the penny dropped, that it was the meat in the tacos, he made a face for form’s sake, then shrugged. “Tastes good.”

Joe was eyeing the somewhat beat-up taco truck suspiciously. “I just hope it doesn’t make us sick.”

“The beer’ll kill it,” Patrick said pragmatically, reaching for his Corona in its flimsy plastic cup with a sad piece of lime on the lip.

“Are you sorry you’re not slurping whiskey out of a showgirl’s navel with Pete?”

“Are you kidding?” Patrick snorted. “I’ve had a lifetime of showgirls with Pete.” It seemed insufficient, said aloud, given how nice the night had been, so he added. “This is perfect, actually,” and nudged his shin against Joe’s under the table. 

Joe smiled and their eyes caught. “Good. I just...” then he cleared his throat and scratched at his chin. There wasn’t much ambient light, just the truck behind Joe, lighting up his hair from behind like a halo, and Patrick couldn’t quite make out the expression on his backlit face.

The longer Joe paused, the more awkward it got, and finally, right as Joe took a breath, Patrick blurted out, “I can’t believe we’re basically still in Vegas. I mean…” he gestured up above them. Except for the muted glow of the city to the north, the sky was as dark as Patrick had maybe ever seen, and filled with what looked like millions of stars.

Joe tilted his head way back and Patrick did, too--it was breathtaking, the crazy ribbons of the Milky Way and all the shades of blue, from horizon to horizon.

“Yeah,” Joe said, and Patrick was so distracted looking for constellations that he didn’t notice, right away, that Joe wasn’t looking up anymore.

Patrick tilted his head back down and Joe’s eyes jumped away, from Patrick’s face to the parking lot, the buildings around them, finally landing on a couple on the patio at the brewery, bent close over a keg made into a table.

“This is gonna sound crazy,” Joe said, after a beat of uncomfortable silence, “because I love, you know, getting to do what we do. But sometimes I’m sorry I don’t just have a life like them.” He tipped his chin at the couple, but Patrick didn’t turn to look again; he didn’t want to take his eyes off of Joe’s face. “I mean, this is their real life. Staying in one place, you know, and going to the local brewery every Taco Tuesday...not, like, dating people when you’re passing through town and...paying someone to collect your mail.”

It hit Patrick hard, somehow--maybe the dreamy atmosphere from the fairy lights and the stars--and left him frozen, mute. He could see it--all of it. They’d passed at least three homes for sale on their meandering drive from the club, out on the edges of the suburbs, halfway in the desert. In a second, the whole fantasy played out in his mind; they could write a check tomorrow, move into a little house near the best taco truck in the Southwest. Join a pub trivia team, get to know the cashiers at the local IGA--walk away from it all and look up at this sky every night and it seemed reasonable, in that moment.

He blinked, still silent. It didn’t seem to be the reaction Joe was waiting for because he shook his head like he was chasing the thought off and looked down at the table top, shoulders rising slightly.

“Not that I’d give it up, you know, Fall Out Boy. It’s just...a thought.”

It was a good thought, if Patrick could do it with him, but Patrick couldn’t say that. So he sat there for another moment--the song was still playing on the radio, the audience singing along as the final chorus died off. It wasn’t at all like when they got froyo and Patrick’s lizard brain was stuck on the idea of licking the freckles on Joe’s shoulders, it wasn’t hand-holding and boner-thoughts tracked in a spreadsheet. He wanted the future that Joe had just described because it was what Joe wanted, wanted to be able to give him that. And before he could even register the thought it almost pushed out of his mouth, might have if he wasn’t so transfixed.

 _Oh my god, I’m so in love with you_. 

And then after that--well, he really doesn’t want to think about the rest.

He makes it through soundcheck and then through the show--even live and onstage, their music isn’t loud enough to drown out the echo of that stupid Spanish ballad, stuck in his brain.

Maybe he’s kind of a bitch the whole night, because no one really tries to talk to him, after they’re done. He slinks back to his room and showers the sweat off, crawls into bed, and tries to forget the whole miserable day.

They have an early bus call the next morning and Andy’s nowhere to be seen. Instead, when Patrick climbs on board with his bag and his bagel and a headache, Pete’s there, already sprawled on the bench.

They don’t talk--Patrick doesn’t even acknowledge the unexpected switch-up--he just pushes back to his bunk and collapses, falling right to sleep.

When he wakes again, there’s a text from Joe. _Not sure what’s wrong, but lmk if i can help._ Then a second text, sent an hour later: _i can switch with pete if he gets too annoying._

Patrick’s going to ignore it, but it seems mean after blanking him yesterday morning, too. He types and erases three times before he settles on: _i’m okay._ It still seems wrong, too terse, so he follows with: _thanks though_ , plus a smiley face, and then drops his phone on his bunk and heads out to piss and eat something.

Pete wants to play Scrabble, so they do that for a while. Patrick keeps winning, and normally, he’d be enjoying it more. Instead, he just feels foggy and numb; the anxiety that was clawing at him yesterday has calmed down, leaving a kind of numb acceptance. It’s a whole new world, now--a terrible and scary one, sure, and his heart is probably going to be broken, but there’s no sense in avoiding reality any longer.

Halfway into their third game, Pete finally brings it up. “So, you wanna tell me what’s going on with you?”

Patrick shrugs and fiddles with the _z_ that’s been sitting on his tile holder since the game started. “I don’t know--it’s nothing. Just...unwelcome personal revelations, I guess.”

“Okay…? I had to, like, pretty much fight Joe to get him to stay on our bus with Andy. Did you guys, like...fight or something?”

“What--no! No, we had a perfectly nice time...you know, saw the show. Got dinner. Came back. No fighting at all.”

Pete stares, like he’s trying to assess the truth of that statement, and Patrick meets his eyes at first, but eventually he squirms and looks away. “Huh,” Pete says. “Does he know that? Because I’m pretty sure he thinks you’re pissed at him or something.”

Patrick is about to say that he doesn’t know why Joe would think that, but it isn’t quite true. The ride home last night had been awkward as hell, for one thing, and he doesn’t think he was giving off angry vibes, but...he probably seemed like a total lunatic.

He’d stayed frozen at the picnic table long enough that Joe cleared their trash, and he didn’t say much as they climbed in the car and navigated back through the maze of dark streets to the freeway, this time with Joe’s phone propped up in the cupholder, providing GPS navigation. 

He wanted something and he didn’t know how to put it into words--it wasn’t to take Joe’s hand or rest a hand on his thigh, it wasn’t to press a kiss where the hair curled under his ear or any of the other things he’d thought about while jerking off recently. Those things still sounded good, but what he wanted, really--it was a lot bigger.

He wanted this kind of night with Joe, more of them. To hold Joe’s hand the next time they sat at a tiny table in a dark club, and a million times after that. Years of froyo, and maybe, one day, a house together and Taco Tuesdays.

He didn’t want Joe to share those things with anyone else--couldn’t bear the thought, actually, as they drove back past the same three houses for sale. And that completed the one-two punch of the night, because...Patrick wasn’t, he realized, going to be able to ride out Joe’s internet dating kick. He wasn’t going to be able to keep his feelings confined to the spreadsheet and pretend like it was a phase, a crush, and then make small talk with Joe’s future girlfriend on the next tour.

Patrick missed some of what Joe was saying, on the first half of the drive. He caught bits and pieces, made little _uh-huh_ noises when he thought it was appropriate, but his head was racing and something was about to shake apart in his chest, too. The whole evening suddenly felt like a point of no return, and that was when the anxiety gremlin set up camp in his chest, with it’s Sunday night feeling of imminent doom, because Pete had been right: he was going to have to _do something_ about this. Something with a capital “S”, and his hands started shaking, just enough that he tucked them between his thighs and the leather seat of the Mazda.

“Hey--you okay?” Joe was asking when Patrick tuned back in.

Patrick nodded, but Joe’s eyes were fixed on the road, so he cleared his throat. “Yeah,” he said, pleased when his voice didn’t shake noticeably. “Yeah, I guess I just…” he trailed off, not uncertain but nervous, almost equally terrified that everything he was thinking was going to come spilling out of his mouth and that it wasn’t, that nothing would change. “I guess I’m just thinking about what you were saying back there, you know? About like...building a normal life...with someone.”

The radio was on, barely loud enough to hear, but Joe reached out and turned it all the way off anyway. Then scratched at his chin, darting a sideways glance at Patrick. “Yeah…?”

“I mean, I guess I think about it, too.” Patrick’s throat froze up, then, a sort of hysterical panic rising up inside him. It was lunacy that he was even contemplating some sort of starlight confession, in a dark car driving past cheaper, off-strip casinos in Vegas, with no kind of strategy at all. He should, he thought, plan this out, sleep on it, maybe, but then he glanced over at Joe, whose face was lit up with colored lights, cast in gold and red, and Joe was smiling just faintly, waiting for Patrick to continue, and crazy as it seemed, maybe this was his moment.

Before Patrick could decide what to do, before he could say anything more, there was a chime from the cupholder, and they both glanced down, reflexively.

They must have been in a dead zone, out in that parking lot, because there were four new notifications on Joe’s cell phone screen, three of them the same: _Someone liked and messaged you on OkCupid!_ The fourth was from someone named Shawna: _Maybe you’ll find out on Thursday_ 😉. _Can’t wait 2 meet u._

Joe reached out quickly, fumbling to turn off the screen. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Just--sorry.” He chuckled self-consciously. “What--what were you saying?”

But the damage was done--it was like cold water, the reminder that Joe was playing the field, that he had a string of people waiting to date him across the country, and Patrick was suddenly sure that a sloppy, off-the-cuff confession in someone else’s car was the wrong way to go about this entirely, would be unwelcome and pathetic.

It was almost a relief, the way the tension drained out of his chest, even as an ache flooded in to take its place. “Nothing,” Patrick said, turning to stare blankly out the window. “Just--actually, are we almost back? I’m...really fucking tired.”

It came out abruptly and hung there until Joe said, “Yeah, dude. I mean, maybe five minutes. Are you--” he sounded tentative, worried, and Patrick couldn’t bear it.

“Yeah,” Patrick cut him off, then softened his tone. “Sorry...just. Tired.”

That was the last they really said until they were back at the Palms, awkwardly saying goodnight halfway between their hotel rooms. When the door closed behind him, Patrick thunked his head against it, face flushing and eyes squeezed closed as the weight of the whole night washed over him. He was in love with Joe, and he almost _told him that_ , but he didn’t--and. Jesus fucking Christ. What a disaster.

He wasn’t mad at Joe, though, and he isn’t today, and Pete’s suggestion that Joe thinks Patrick is pissed hangs over the rest of their Scrabble game. Patrick’s winning streak ends and he barely notices. When he plays “AT” for a second time, Pete snaps.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, just fucking text him!”

“What?” Patrick aims for confusion, tries blinking a few times like he doesn’t follow, but it’s not particularly effective.

“Dude...you’re totally preoccupied thinking about Joe. Just apologize for whatever you did so you can stop sulking and cheer the fuck up--I’m sure he’ll forgive you.”

“I told you, we didn’t fight; I don’t need to apologize.” It might not be strictly, 100% true--he _had_ been sort of...curt, maybe. Toward the end there, the other night. And yesterday.

Pete eyes him skeptically. “Really.”

“Really,” Patrick says. 

Pete must believe him, this time. "Wait,” he says, “Wait. So you've been a bitch for two days, and you've got everyone worried about you--even James the tech asked if you were sick or something--and I just spent two hours letting you win at Scrabble because I thought something really bad went down...and you're telling me that all that happened is...you went out with Joe and...had a nice time?"

“First of all,” Patrick points at Pete, “you didn’t _let_ me win. I played _exotic_ and _fez_ , fair and square.”

“You played _froyo_ , dude, and that’s not even a word.”

Patrick ignores that. “And second, yes, we had a nice time.” Then he starts to run out of steam a little bit, because it’s true but it’s also a lie of omission and he feels bad, lying straight to Pete’s face. “I mean...it’s possible that I had... _too_ nice of a time.”

Pete’s eyebrows rise and he starts to open his mouth, and Patrick’s sure a joke about boners or happy endings is on the horizon, so he rushes to add, “I mean, maybe I kind of realized that I’m not just... _burning for him_ , or whatever. Maybe it’s, like...more than that.”

“Ah,” Pete says, and he doesn’t even pretend to look surprised, which makes the flush on Patrick’s cheeks darken. Stupid fucking Pete and his stupid fucking _intuitions_ about this shit. “So, what, you realized that you’re like...in love, and shit, and you totally freaked out?”

Patrick starts collecting the scrabble tiles and dumping them into the box, shrugging one shoulder. Pete seems to take that as agreement and nods like he can picture it, annoyingly self-satisfied.

“I don’t want him to think I’m pissed, though,” Patrick says eventually.

“Text him,” Pete says, like it’s that simple.

“And say what?”

“I have a heart-boner for you.”

“No.”

“Sorry I’ve been such a bitch; wanna be boyfriends?”

“Absolutely not.”

“I’ve loved everything about you that hurts so let me see your moves, let me see your moves.”

“Are you fucking high? That is...not helpful!”

Pete sighs and throws his hands up. “I’ve just given you three of my best lines, dude. I mean--don’t tell me you’re just gonna never tell him and suffer silently while he keeps up this dating spree, because I’m gonna need reinforcements, if that’s the case, like. You are _not_ pleasant in heartbreak.”

“No!” Patrick says defensively. He rubs at his eyes under his glasses. “I’m...I’m gonna fucking tell him. I just, like...I need a minute to fucking...process. I need a plan.”

“Oh god.” Pete looks stricken, and he reaches out, solemnly, and places his hand on Patrick’s arm. “Patrick--Patrick. You’re not going to make a flowchart, are you?”

“I’m gonna make a flowchart,” Patrick confirms, and Pete groans and flops over backwards until his head hits the cushions behind him. “It just--it’ll let me maximise my chances of success! Don’t shit on my process.”

Pete just shakes his head sadly.

Patrick ends up using half of one of Pete’s suggestions--he texts Joe _sorry I’ve been a bitch_ and then he buys him a strawberry Good Humor bar when they stop for gas. “They didn’t have froyo,” he says, shrugging, when he gives it to him. He still feels a new, shaky swoop in his stomach, seeing Joe, but he’s had months of practice at pushing this shit down, and he even manages a smile.

There’s still something concerned lingering between Joe’s eyebrows, but he grins back. “Thanks, dude.” 

Patrick heads back to his bus, telling himself he just needs a day or two to get his shit together, and then he’ll deal with this for real.

The flowchart making process gets off to a rocky start, largely because it’s impossible for Patrick to get an initial estimate of his chances of heartbreak versus happily ever after. Or, you know, even one date. He knows that Joe likes him--loves him, even--and they have fun together and want a lot of the same things out of life, and he figures those are all pretty foundational to a solid romantic relationship.

But he has no idea, just no idea at all, if Joe has ever had so much as a single boner-thought about Patrick, if Joe’s _attracted_ to him. That’s the big question mark--he highlights it in yellow on his new spreadsheet--and he realizes pretty quickly that he has no way of figuring it out. His own impressions are just as likely to be wishful thinking as they are to be objective, and no matter how often Pete suggests it, he’s not going to arrange any sort of “oops you walked in on me in the shower” experiment.

So he’s starting with a total guess, which isn’t really the soundest way to begin this type of calculation, but he has no choice. He figures he has an 80% chance of humiliation and heartbreak and there’s a 20% chance that Joe will be amenable to the idea. He’d be happier if he could figure out the optimal circumstances, the best thing to say, and edge that 20% closer to 30%, so that’s what he focuses on.

Joe goes out with Shawna, although he seems almost uncertain about it. “We made the plans, like, a week ago…” he says, fretting in their dressing room.

“Then go,” Andy sighs. It’s his third iteration of _then go--then don’t go_ in the 10 minutes they’ve been talking about this, but Joe’s mostly watching Patrick.

Patrick figures he’s just embarrassed about Shawna’s little suggestive, winky emoji, or something, and so he nods and says, “She seemed like she was looking forward to it.” It’s not at all what he _wants_ to be saying, but--he’s not ready to play his hand yet, and anyway, what’s one more date.

Still, it pretty much sucks when Joe puts on his date shirt and leaves the next evening, but Patrick grits his teeth and tries to be a supportive friend. Luckily, he’s gotten used to the guilt about being happy when Joe’s lonely, so he’s almost unfettered in his relief when Joe returns and announces that Shawna excused herself to the bathroom and never came back.

“Sucks, man…” Pete says, but Joe just shakes it off.

“It wasn’t, like...going well,” he says pragmatically. “I should have just fucking...gone to find more awesome tacos with Patrick. That was a much better evening.” He winks when he says it and Patrick freezes. He winks back, eventually, and it’s even a flirty, playful wink, just 45 full seconds too late. Luckily Joe’s not looking his direction anymore.

That night, Patrick adjusts his percentages in what might be a fit of hopeful delusion, shifting his 20% estimation of success all the way to 25%.

He’s got a pretty healthy list of variables, by now, in his quest for the perfect plan. He’s settled, for example, on “Would you like to go on a date with me?” because he thinks it’s probably less overwhelming than a declaration of eternal love. He’s thought about location (alone enough not to be overheard nets him a -15% chance of humiliation if Joe says no; however, _trapped_ alone where neither of them can leave equals a +20% chance of unbearable awkwardness). He’s thought about what he should wear (according to Pete, his faded black jeans make his ass look 10% nicer than the unfaded ones). He’s discarded no less than seven romantic gestures, with varying confidence levels (100% no to writing him a song, 75% no to flowers, but it’s a 40/60 yes/no split on playing the Spanish song from the taco truck, just as, like...a gesture)

(He’s not proud that he tracked the song down, or that it’s been on repeat on his iPod).

In the end, Patrick thinks that if:

  1. they’re alone but not trapped alone (and)
  2. Joe is relaxed (but)
  3. sober (and)
  4. in a good mood (and)
  5. he reminds Joe of how compatible they are (and)
  6. he doesn’t wear a civil war reenactment costume (or)
  7. ask for a lock of Joe’s hair (and)
  8. he can actually get the question out without choking,



then: he’s got a 28% chance of success.

The problem is that the pressure is growing. The closer he gets to finalizing his plan, the scarier the whole thing becomes, and Pete’s in the background, his cheerleading quickly turning to impatience with Patrick’s ‘process’.

In short, he’s back on his mood swings again, and after the third time he snaps at Pete that he needs another day because he has a headache (and the second time he snaps at Andy about nothing), Pete starts giving him looks.

“Yo, Stump!” he says, when he finally catches Patrick alone on the bus one morning in a truck stop parking lot. He has a package of Oreos in his hand, which is a pretense that Patrick isn’t going to fall for.

Patrick’s sitting next to the table with a cup of coffee, and no cookies to dunk in it, which makes him really resent the hell out of Pete’s stupid attempt at bribery. “Pete,” he says, “I have a headache right now, so it’s not a good time for a heart-to-heart. Maybe try again later.”

Pete just rolls his eyes and pushes further onto the bus. “See...this is why I’m here. You’ve been crankier than usually lately, so I brought you Oreos.” He holds the sleeve of cookies out, and Patrick takes it, turns, and dumps it straight into the trash can, all without looking up from his newspaper. He doesn’t want to do it--in fact, he’d very much like to eat the cookies, except that they come with strings attached and he’s known Pete long enough to have twigged to his wily ways. _What’s the harm in a cookie?_ he’ll think, and next thing he knows he’s got chocolate crumbs around his lips while they spill all of his secrets. So into the trash they go. Boundaries.

Pete looks forlornly at the Oreos and sighs. “Okay, so I’m upgrading this to a level-10 intervention. I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this because I have shit to _do_ this morning besides deal with this sorry mess,” he waves his hand vaguely at Patrick’s coffee-stained Glendale Kiwanis club t-shirt, and Patrick crosses his arms protectively over his chest, “but Ashlee was all, _no Pete, he’s your best friend, Pete, you have to help him, Pete_.” Pete’s imitation of Ashlee’s voice is not particularly flattering, and given that she seems to be Pete’s silent partner in this confrontation, Patrick momentarily wishes she could hear it just so she’d be as annoyed as he is. 

“Pete,” he snips, “I don’t wanna do this today, okay? I’m fine--things are moving apace. Trust the process. You can tell Ashlee that you helped me.”

“I can’t, though. Because we’re going to kill you. Me and Andy. You’ve been kind of a little bitch lately.” When Patrick glares, Pete holds up both hands. “I said ‘kind of’. But dude, Andy was going to come talk to you if I didn’t, Patrick. _Andy_.”

Patrick deflates. Andy’s like Teflon for shitty moods; they don’t really stick to him, he just rolls with it, so. His willingness to get involved here does not reflect well on Patrick’s estimation that he’s been basically keeping it together, despite his Mexican lovesong-fuelled inner turmoil.

Patrick gives in and digs the Oreos out of the trash. He knows when he’s beaten.

Pete does, too. “So,” he says, sitting down. “What the hell’s _going on_ with you? I thought you were going to talk to him. What happened to the flowchart?” It’s annoying--Pete already knows what’s going on with Patrick; Pete could write down his side of this conversation and send it in the mail because he already knows what Patrick is going to say. But Pete won’t do that; he likes to pretend like these are Very Special Friendship Moments.

Patrick has to work a little bit to get the words out around his mouthful of cookie. “I already told you,” he mumbles.

“And _I_ told _you_ to talk to him. And you said you would, but here we are, almost a week later, and this is happening.” Pete gestures again at Patrick’s shirt, now with additional crumbs, and the way Patrick is shoving his third Oreo into his mouth.

“I’m working on it. I keep telling you, I need time, and also this thing with these headaches…boy that came out of nowhere.” Patrick shrugs, wide-eyed. “I might need to see a specialist or something, make sure I’m in good health…it could be a tumor.”

“Your head is fine!” Pete protests. “Well, I mean, it’s not fine. The flowcharts are demented. But you don’t have a tumor, you’re just...stuck or something. We both know what you need to do--and it’s the only thing that’s going to make you feel better, and that will make me and Andy feel better. Like...you need to just get off your ass here, make a move, and trust that...things’ll work out.” There’s a weird intensity around Pete’s eyes, which are wide open and staring, like he’s trying to beam a message into Patrick’s brain.

 _That’s how he gets you_ , Patrick thinks, and he pulls his shoulders up higher. “What if he, if he--I mean, what if he doesn’t…?” Patrick can’t even finish the thought aloud. _What if he punches me? What if he quits the band? What if he says, ‘I’m flattered, but…’?_ They all seem equally possible, and equally catastrophic. 

Pete sighs. “Listen,” he says, ratcheting the intensity down and aiming for soothing. “If you can’t bring yourself to follow your plan for a big, dramatic heart-to-heart, or whatever, maybe just...don’t. Don’t worry so much about talking about it, just...make the taco truck thing happen again. That sure seemed like a date...”

“Oh, god, I know,” Patrick sighs, despairing, because in retrospect it really _did_ , but...he just has no idea if Joe thought so, too. “But I can’t--I don’t want it to _seem like_ we’re dating…” _I want to know that we are_ \--Patrick doesn’t finish the sentence aloud, he feels pathetic enough, but Pete seems to get it anyway, nods. “I just don’t know how to, like...tell _him_ that.”

Pete takes a breath and Patrick already knows what he’s going to say--the only logical advice he can give, for the 50th time, which is to stop with the hand-wringing and make a move. Pete doesn’t get a chance to say that, though, because the door kind of creaks, and they both turn their heads in unison. It’s Joe, standing there, slightly red-faced like he jogged over to their bus. Of course it’s Joe. Patrick uses the back of his hand to swipe at his mouth, which is probably chocolatey at the corners, and sits up from his hunch over the table, trying to pretend like nothing is going on, this is just a casual hang, but it’s too late. Joe hesitates, mid-step, taking in the Oreos, Patrick’s red face, Pete’s earnest tone, and he knows enough to recognize a Very Special Friendship Moment when he sees one.

“What’s up, party people?” Joe says, recovering. It’s kind of weak, and he looks pale under the redness on his cheeks, eyes wide and shocky and Patrick wonders if maybe he’s coming down with something. Before he can ask, Joe he soldiers on. “We’re about to get moving again, so unless you wanna stay over here and finish your...talk?” Joe’s addressing Pete, and Patrick realizes, to his horror, that Joe could--just possibly--have caught the end of their conversation as he came in. He can’t remember how much he said, if they used Joe’s name, and he’s struck mute with the horror of that fact. Joe doesn’t look...anything, though. A little subdued, maybe, tight around the eyes, but that’s it--it’s not the expression of a man who just heard one his best friends and bandmates pining over him, as far as Patrick can tell, so. Patrick tries to unclench.

Pete throws up his hands. “I’m done giving advice!” he says. “Ric’s heard it all anyway.”

Patrick tries to think of something to add to that, to say to Joe. He wants to get a smile or something, just...some evidence that his 28% isn’t a massive overestimation.

But before he can think of anything, Pete gets up to leave--but first he has to search the cushions where he was sitting because his phone’s not in his pocket, but maybe it’s on his bus, except he thinks he had when he came over here, and it’s a whirlwind before he finds it in the kangaroo pouch of his hoodie, By the time that’s sorted, Joe is already gone, without a word, and then Pete hugs him tight and follows. They presumably send Andy back over, but by that point, Patrick’s safely ensconced himself in his bunk. He’s had his fill of ambushes and awkward conversations for the day.

They’re playing the last shows of the tour, now, and they’re all a little burnt out. Ashlee flies out for the final dates; she’s staying on the bus with Joe and Pete, and usually, that would drive Joe into Patrick’s orbit more often, giving the lovebirds some privacy, but this time he seems to be busying himself elsewhere altogether. 

It sucks. 

Patrick’s been in this weird limbo since Vegas where he wants to be around Joe pretty much all the time but then, when he is, he can barely open his mouth because he’s sure he’ll go off-script and say something humiliating. The more he dwells on it, the heavier it feels, like it’s a secret that’s grown exponentially--from the spreadsheet to the jerking off to the love part--and the more he tells himself to act normally around Joe, the further out of reach normal becomes. He’s spent a lot of time, over the past week, finding reasons to leave the room when Joe talks to him, because Patrick can feel the words waiting to come out: “ _I spend a lot of time thinking about you when I touch my dick,_ ” or “ _Pete says you have sex toys on the bus; can I see?_ ” or, worse, this running loop of “ _I love you I love you be with me I love you._ ” So he scurries away but he can’t _stay_ away, he’s like an addict, and he ends up sidling awkwardly back into Joe’s space again as soon as he can.

Except now, when he goes looking for Joe, to get his fix, Joe’s just...gone. When they’re not in transit or on stage, he’s nowhere to be found--not on his bus with Pete and Ashlee, not on Patrick’s bus, and his hotel rooms always seem empty. Patrick even tracks down James the tech, in case they’re playing hacky-sack, but James is with his girlfriend (and surprisingly testy about having to answer the door shirtless, _sheesh_ , put a sock on the knob if you don’t want company).

Patrick didn’t notice, really, how much Joe was _around_ , this tour, even with his online dating exploits, until he isn’t. His sudden absence leaves Patrick miserable and alone; Pete’s busy with Ashlee, Andy’s avoiding him, and Joe’s doing god knows what...dating? Clubbing? Groping some dude in a men’s room somewhere while bad techno music plays in the background?

It’s making Patrick uneasy, but he stomps those feelings down. It’s the very end of tour; they’re all exhausted. Joe’s probably just...napping a lot. Or something. Patrick’s kind of crazy with exhaustion himself, possibly, kind of out of his mind (evidence: _Andy’s_ avoiding him). He feels like a wind-up toy, a little mechanical monkey with a drum, and this tour, this Joe thing...it’s just been cranking and cranking the key in his back until his head’s about to pop off.

But they’ll be home soon. It’ll be good, it’ll be...Patrick can sleep at his own house, take a few days to finalize the flowchart. Talk to Joe away from this craziness--and maybe it’ll even bump his chances of success up to 29%, if they’re, like...well-rested.

He closes Excel (saves everything, of course, and a backup copy). Throws himself into their last two shows. Apologizes to Andy. Starts collecting his shit from every nook and cranny of the bus--standing over his suitcase with two of his t-shirts in one hand and one of Joe’s flannel shirts in the other, he almost feels excited. There’s an end date to the madness, and he’ll have time alone to lick his wounds if it goes badly, and…at least he won’t be trapped on this fucking bus, watching Joe scroll through OKCupid. He’s not sure if it’s optimistic or pathetic that he tucks the flannel in with his clothes--he doesn’t dwell on it as he’s doing it, like that will make it easier to pretend it was an accident later--but he’s almost cheerful when he zips the bag closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song that is playing while they eat their tacos is Lento (Unplugged) by Julieta Venegas, which you can listen to [HERE](https://open.spotify.com/user/o8gf3wa6pibsn4yivakmb98y6/playlist/1lGg35fteeqAFsVdyme9EW?si=DxVjc_PhQOaIosBCtECA1Q), if you're so inclined.


	3. Chapter 3

In LA, Patrick takes a few days to crash in his own bed. There’s something about being home that normalizes everything, makes him feel a little more balanced and a little less frantic and crazy, and on their third day post-tour when Joe texts him to follow up on his missing shirt and Patrick texts back _oops it ended up in my stuff_ and _pick it up whenever, i’m home all day_ he thinks maybe this is his chance.

He spends the afternoon tidying up the explosion of luggage in his living room, and then taking a shower (extra-close shave, double layer of deodorant). Then he collapses on the couch and pretends to read a book, glancing up every time he hears a car make the turn onto his street. After 45 minutes, his neighbor pulls into her driveway and Patrick almost vibrates off his seat, he’s wound so tight, and it’s honestly so pathetic that he feels vaguely disgusted with himself.

He closes his book--no bookmark, he’s going to have to re-read the last two chapters anyway--and stands up, resolved to work off some of this nervous energy. He tries a few jumping jacks before he notices that the rubber soles of his shoes are leaving tiny marks on his hardwood floor, considers a pushup or two but there’s not really room, what with the coffee table in the way, and in the end he’s kind of high stepping around his couch, swinging his arms, when he hears a throat clearing.

It’s Joe. Of course it is. He’s leaning in the doorway, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, and Patrick freezes before lowering one leg and both arms as naturally as he can, aiming for casual. It probably doesn’t work.

“I knocked…”

“Yeah...I was just, uh,” Patrick trails off, thinking, then gives it up and shrugs. He just saw Joe a few days ago, hugged him, even, at LAX before they all went their separate ways, but it’s shocking how good he looks, now that he’s here. Here in Patrick’s living room with no interruptions, with no tour madness, just the two of them for the first time in what feels like weeks. Patrick’s hands feel slightly shaky, and he crosses his arms to hide it. It feels too closed off, though, too defensive and he pulls them apart again and tucks his thumbs through his belt loops--some sort of totally misguided James Dean pose that doesn’t come naturally to Patrick at all, and he ends up gripping the back of his couch instead. 

Jesus, this is a shit show.

“I’ve got your shirt,” he says at the same moment Joe says, “So, caught up on sleep yet?” and they blink at each other for a moment.

“My shirt, yeah, thanks.”

It’s in the kitchen and Patrick’s glad to duck out of sight for a minute. He leans his palms on the counter and tips his head down, bent almost in half, mouths _act fucking normal_ to himself. Takes a shaky breath.

“So,” he says, heading back into the living room with the shirt in his hands, “I was thinking, like...do you maybe want to go get some froyo or something?” Patrick’s working so hard to pace the words, keep them from rushing out in one breath, that he almost misses the way Joe fidgets uncomfortably at the question. He gives up on breath control. “It’s just,” he blurts, “even though we just got back it feels like it’s been a while since I’ve really seen you, you know?”

“ _Mmm_ , froyo.” Joe’s smiling but he’s not looking at Patrick. He glances out the front window to the street, instead. “I would, it’s just I’ve kinda got a date, dude.” When his eyes finally meet Patrick’s again, they’re genuinely apologetic, soft at the corners.

“Oh.” Patrick has about three seconds to reevaluate, here--Joe doesn’t have time for froyo, but just because he has a date that doesn’t mean it’s not the right moment for the flowchart.

“Yeah, I mean that’s why--” Joe holds up the shirt, waves it back and forth. “I thought I’d wear this. It’s a second date, actually--turns out I don’t have that many nice shirts.”

And, “Oh,” Patrick repeats. _Oh_. The whole thing is slipping through his fingers and he can’t quite seem to close them, to grasp onto anything about this situation. He’s not sure he has enough blood pressure to operate his extremities--he’s not sure his heart is still beating.

Joe’s blood is clearly pumping, though--his cheeks are pink. He keeps talking even though Patrick’s not really responding. “His name is Simon. And uh...I don’t know. We were talking for a while, I guess, right at the end of the tour. He seemed cool, but…” he shrugs and the corners of his mouth curl up in a grin. “He was really upfront that he’s looking for something serious, you know? And I kinda thought...” Joe shoots a little glance at Patrick, and Patrick just blinks back because there’s this sharp pain in his skull and maybe the tumor’s back. Joe smiles wanly in response. “Yeah,” he says, finally, “I just figured...what am I waiting for? Might as well go for it…you know?”

Patrick nods like he knows, but all he can think is that this explains where the hell Joe has been, the last leg of the tour: not hooking up in club bathrooms, but forging an emotional and intellectual connection with someone. Which is _so much worse_.

“So...you met him?” he asks, eventually, because he’s a masochist.

Joe smiles slightly down at the ground, then looks back up, sheepish. “Well, you know. We got back to LA and...it seemed like the thing to do. Tuesday--we got coffee, and...he looked just like his picture, pretty cute, so I was happy about that.” He shrugs again, but his grin is goofy. “Then I saw the slogan on his t-shirt, dude. Fucking Megadeath. And...I don’t know. We just kinda hit it off, I guess.”

Patrick bites his tongue, hard, and nods. He tries to smile, but it feels sort of pained--probably the tongue thing--so he gives it up in favor of a firm pat on the back. “Cool, man,” he says.

It’s not cool.

Simon does set design in Hollywood. He’s creative, and he smokes recreationally. He plays in a Phish cover band and he has a great record collection and he’s lived a lot of life, you know, but he’s looking for something serious. He’s looking for a partner to share his creative, music-filled future with, and Patrick hates him immediately.

It’s not going to last. Patrick tells himself that, over and over. It’s not going to last--there’s gotta be something wrong with Simon, and when it comes out, he’ll go the way of Shawna and the hair guy and the chicken farmer and...all the rest. Patrick just has to bide his time, keep refining his plan. Maybe his odds even go up a little, in comparison, when Simon turns out to be a loser--when his baby seal clubbing hobby is revealed, or Joe stumbles across his collection of racist Civil War memorabilia.

Yeah. That’s what’ll happen.

According to Pete, Joe and Simon go on _three dates_ in a row. Patrick tries to keep busy. He plays some Mario Kart alone, but frankly, it’s a stupid game. Even the jerking off is kind of ruined--it’s got this tragic edge, now, like he’s jerking it in a production of Wuthering Heights. It’s okay in the moment, but the aftermath is ugly every time. 

And then they meet Simon, and Patrick’s misery becomes exponential. They have a few press obligations in LA, normal shit, but Simon picks Joe up from a radio station. Seriously, Joe’s very male date comes to the origin of _the media_ , just walks in with a stupid fucking hat on like they couldn’t be outed by any of the one thousand fucking microphones and reporters all around them (okay, six and two, but that’s eight too many), and he touches Joe’s elbow and they all talk to him for five minutes before he takes Joe to go help him pick out a dog to adopt from the shelter.

Simon is terrible. It’s immediately obvious to Patrick, but maybe only to him. Before Simon and Joe leave to go rescue Benji, Patrick keeps shooting _what the fuck_ looks at Andy, but Andy’s just smiling and recommending a vegan barbecue house, what the _fuck_. Pete keeps smirking because Patrick didn’t follow his advice and spill his guts and probably destroy the band, so...he’s no help.

They talk for five minutes, and Patrick goes home and makes another spreadsheet--it’s really just a list, but he feels better.

It’s called Reasons Simon is Terrible, and there are two basic subcategories of reasons: “he’s just like Patrick”, and “but better”.

Ways he’s just like Patrick:

  1. He’s kind of ginger.
  2. He wears a hat. Or he was, when they met him.
  3. He loves pub trivia.
  4. He’s passionate about his work and hobbies.
  5. He’s in a band.



Ways he’s better than Patrick:

  1. He’s taller than Patrick, but not taller than Joe.
  2. He smokes.
  3. His apartment has an ocean view.
  4. He went to college.
  5. He’s not in _Joe’s_ band.



Patrick creates a third category, when he’s done, called miscellaneous, and just adds _he’s a braggart_ , because that’s a lot to have learned from a five minute conversation. Then he adds in some numbers--a point score--next to each item, representing the amount it annoys him, and turns the whole thing into a pie chart.

It makes him feel better for a moment. Then it’s just sad. He closes the screen.

He whines on Pete’s couch the next day, but Pete’s sympathy is limited.

“Fucking talk to Joe!” he says, for the fourth time in an hour, pacing around his living room and throwing his hands up--literally. “I’m--I think I’m having deja vu. I think I’m stuck in Groundhog Day, just forced to have this conversation over and over. I hate to say _I told you so_ ,” lie--Pete loves it-- “but if you had listened to me _before_ , this wouldn’t be happening _now_. The longer you wait, the worse it gets, so for the 100th time: talk to him! Go! Now! Do the flowchart thing! Today!” Ashlee’s been in New York since she left them on tour, and she’s due home today. Patrick can tell when he’s not wanted. He doesn’t move.

Pete finally stops ranting and collapses into an armchair, and Patrick sighs and rubs his eyes. He doesn’t want to explain this again, but sometimes Pete is thick. “Dude,” he says, “I don’t think it’s the right moment. It just--it seems kinda shitty. Like, I don’t want to be that guy, you know? If he’s happy…” he pauses and pokes at a rip near the knee of his jeans. “Just...let me be miserable, here, for a minute.”

Pete is shaking his head before Patrick’s done talking. “Counterpoint,” he says, in fucking future-lawyer, debate team mode, “he just met this guy...they can’t even be that serious. Take a fucking chance, Ric. Like, I love that you’re cautious--”

Patrick snorts because if, _if_ Pete loves that, it’s only because he loves coercing cautious people to do stupid things.

“I love that you’re cautious,” Pete repeats haughtily, “but you’re blowing it, here. He’s known Simon for, what, like a week?”

“Two,” Patrick sullenly corrects.

“Okay, two weeks. So what? They can’t be exclusive yet--they’re probably both still on that fucking website, or whatever, talking to other people.”

“They got a dog together, dude.”

Pete sighs loudly at the ceiling. “No,” he says, voice dripping with condescending patience, “Simon went to pick up the dog that he had already planned to adopt before he even met Joe. Joe tagged along--which I might steal in the future; puppies make for a cute date; it’s pretty much gold. You’re catastrophizing.”

It’s possibly true that Patrick’s freaking out a little. That Simon has ruined his really solid plan to return to sanity when the tour ended and deal with things like a rational human. That he honestly, for the first time in his life, understands why one person might throw darts at a picture of another person’s face and even started drawing a stick figure of Simon last night for that purpose before he remembered that he doesn’t own darts.

He’s not going to say that, though. “I just don’t want to ruin a good thing for Joe. He seems, like...happy.” There, that sounds rational and adult.

“Honestly, dude,” Pete says, genuinely kindly this time. He even reaches over and pats Patrick’s forearm. “You’re not going to ruin it--either way. If he’s not into you, he’s just going to keep dating Simon. And if he is, how good was the thing with Simon gonna be, anyways?”

It might be the most rational advice Pete has given him in a while, but Patrick is feeling contrary. “Maybe…” he says, sighing again and tipping his head back until he’s looking at the ceiling over Pete’s couch. “But I’d need to adjust the flowchart to account for this…”

“Okay,” Pete says, slapping his hands down on the arms of his chair. It startles Patrick and he jerks his head up. “That’s it. Leave. You have to leave. I’m going to have sex with my girl, probably right where you’re sitting,” and that gets Patrick to jump off the couch, “and you’re determined to be miserable, so. I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here.”

So the situation has spiralled. Even Pete kicked him out. The tour is over; Joe is happy; Patrick is miserable, and it’s probably fucking karma for secretly enjoying those times when Joe’s dates ditched him.

They have a meeting at Island two days later and Joe says, “Simon’s having a pool party tonight at his complex, with, like his band dudes and stuff. You guys should come.”

“I’m busy.” Patrick answers so curtly and quickly that even Andy shoots him a reprimanding look. “Uh, I mean...I think I’m busy…?”

“He’s making this jerk chicken recipe that he got from his host family’s grandma in Jamaica, dude…” Joe says it like it’s tempting, like Patrick gives a shit about jerk chicken. “You can reorganize your shoe closet later.” It’s affectionate, teasing, but it makes Patrick’s face flame anyway. 

Everyone is looking at them, now, even the Island intern pouring water into the glasses around the table, and Patrick finds himself nodding. Pete thumps him on the back, and Patrick chooses to interpret it as a sign of sympathetic solidarity.

Everything Pete said is true--Patrick knows that. But Patrick was right, too--Joe seems happy. If he wanted to make another spreadsheet, he could plot it, two inverse lines: his own mood, diving below the _x_ -axis, getting lower and lower every day, and Joe’s smiles getting brighter while he trends upwards. The last thing he wants is to go watch them be all adorable together and wonder if Simon is here to stay.

Still, he doesn’t have a choice, especially when Joe grabs him on the way out of the office, tugs him out of the main path to the exit and into a corner next to a fake plant.

“Look,” Joe says, “you don’t have to come if you don’t want to. To the party, I mean.”

“Oh.” Patrick’s about to add _yeah, actually, I’m pretty tired,_ but he’s distracted by Joe’s fingers on his arm just above his elbow, the way Joe’s thumb is kind of fidgeting back and forth against his skin. It’s making the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

“It’s just...I really want you guys to get to know Simon,” Joe’s talking again, and Patrick zones back in to realize that he’s missed his chance. If he ducks out now, he’ll seem like an ass.

“Of course,” he says, still nodding. “I mean--sure.” His chin’s still going; it’s like he’s one of those liquid-filled birds just bobbing away.

Joe’s still touching his arm. 

It’s silent for a few moments, and Patrick is just about to ask if that was all Joe wanted when Joe continues, hesitant all of a sudden.

“I know I wasn’t...I mean, I kind of haven’t been around? Like, at the end of the tour. And I just don’t want you to think that...I mean...we’re gonna be cool, right? No matter what?”

Patrick blinks and his brow starts to furrow. “What? Of course… _Joe_ \--of course.” It _has_ to be true, with or without Patrick’s broken heart or Joe’s...Simon. “Of course,” he says again.

“Okay.” Joe looks embarrassed now, ruffles the hair on the back of his head self-consciously. Patrick’s going to ask why, what Joe’s worried about, but he’s missing all his cues in this conversation and Joe keeps going. “So...like, eight-ish? I’ll text you the address?”

“Yeah.” Patrick reaches out; he’s going to pat Joe on the arm or hug him maybe, he’s not sure, but Joe is backing away already. So he just repeats, “Eight-ish,” and watches Joe walk away.

The party is terrible, obviously.

Patrick is the only person who doesn’t wear swim shorts, because he’s not fucking getting into a pool with Simon’s “band dudes” unless he’s dead and floating. “Allergies,” he says, breezily, when anyone asks. There’s a makeshift bar on a patio table and Simon is playing bartender. “Hey, Pat!” He’s got a huge grin, and he claps Patrick on the upper arm, like they’re old friends.

“Uh...I don’t really like ‘Pat’,” Patrick smiles back, but it feels pained. “It’s my mom’s name, so…”

Simon remains unflappable. “Oh, dude, sorry!” He looks genuinely apologetic. Patrick hates him. “Won’t happen again. What’ll you have?” Simon slides a miniature chalkboard beer menu over to Patrick, but all of the beers have incomprehensible names: Steigl Weisse and Puntigamer, and when Patrick just squints at the list, Simon says, “Oh, yeah, I got super into Austrian beer when I spent a summer at this monastery there.” He points to one of the entries. “This one tastes like Coors.”

Just to be contrary, Patrick points to something else on the list, the one with the longest name and the most consonants, and Simon raises an eyebrow but cheerfully pours. “Prost!” he says, and Patrick lifts his glass and backs away.

The beer is disgusting--it tastes the way wet dogs smell, but also muskier than wet dogs. He forces himself to swallow and looks around. Andy’s in the water, deep in conversation about composting with two girls with facial piercings, and Pete had actual fucking plans tonight and isn’t going to make it, so Patrick stands by a shrub, pretending to sip his gross dog water beer, sweating through his shirt while everyone else jumps in and out of the pool. 

Joe is smoking on a bench with some of Simon’s friends, and he’s got everyone laughing. Simon’s on the other side of the patio, still pouring beer, and for all that Joe’s been running around grabbing extra napkins and pointing people toward the bathroom, playing co-host, they’ve barely interacted since Patrick walked in. In fact, Simon’s been watching Patrick, steadily enough that it’s making his shoulders tense, the prickly feeling of eyes on the back of his neck.

He moves to a different shrub, out of view, and stays there until Joe comes to find him.

“Come meet people, dude. Or...get some food, at least. Someone brought those tiny hotdogs.”

“I’m not really hungry…” Still, when Joe slings an arm around Patrick’s neck and pulls, he follows, along the edge of the pool and back into the throng.

“You should talk to Paul about gated reverb--he’s, like--well, you’ll either love him or want to kill him but I can promise you a lively conversation,” Joe’s saying, and Patrick steps on the heel of his own shoe and starts to trip, off-balance from the way Joe’s tugging him along. His arm flies around Joe’s back for balance and Joe laughs, says, “You’re going to end up in the water, at this rate, _allergies_ or not.”

Patrick’s flushed now, chuckling, and Joe lets him go then grabs his arm, steadying him while he reaches down to fix his shoe. 

“I’m not swimming, dude,” Patrick says, “but I’m happy to meet Paul.” He finally gets his foot situation sorted and looks up just in time to see Simon waving in their direction.

Joe follows his gaze. “Ah--I’m on ice duty.” He lets go of Patrick’s arm and points as he backs away. “Wait here; I’ll be right back.”

Ice duty turns into manning the grill though, and after a few minutes it’s obvious that Joe’s not returning any time soon. Patrick mills around for a bit, idly tries to find the infamous Paul with no luck, and eventually, snags an empty seat at a poolside table with some of the band dudes. They’re talking about music, at first, which is cool, but then it veers toward the summer they spent following OAR on tour, sleeping in vans and showering at rest areas. Maybe it’s because touring is his job, but Patrick feels fucking old, has to bite back on the temptation to explain how tiresome the whole thing really is, how it’s a grind. Simon joins them, one-upping their stories until he gets to the part where he spent the night with Tori Amos in a Motel 6 in Cleveland, and Patrick just phases out of the conversation entirely.

When the chicken is ready, the band dudes head over to line up at the grill, and Patrick keeps his seat, staring at his half-full pint glass on the ironwork table. There’s a scraping noise as the chair next to him is adjusted, and then Joe drops into it.

“I’m glad you came,” Joe says, setting his own beer (the Coors one, Patrick notes) down next to Patrick’s. “But, dude, you look kinda miserable.”

Patrick glances up at Joe, who looks genuinely concerned, then adjusts his cap and sighs, pulling out a tiny smile. “I’m just tired.”

“I hear that,” Joe says, grabbing his beer and tipping it until the side clinks against Patrick’s, forcing Patrick to take a sip. He tries not to wrinkle his nose too obviously, but Joe catches it and laughs. “Yeah, that one’s gross.”

“Mmm.” For the first time in a long time, with Joe, Patrick can’t think of a thing to say. There’s no backlog of words piling up on his tongue, no declarations of affection. It just feels like there’s no point. “You know, I think I’m gonna take off, actually. I know it’s lame, but I just--I really am tired. And I’m not sure this is my...vibe tonight. Or whatever.”

Joe nods, picking at the edge of his coaster, peeling the colorful printed layer off the top. “Yeah,” he says eventually. “I’m not sure it’s mine, exactly, either, but. I don’t know. I’m trying something new, I guess. This whole tour, I kept thinking...I don’t know. Maybe it’s time to accept that waiting around, doing the same old stuff…it’s never going to get me what I want. Maybe it’s time to move on.” He’s staring off over the treetops at the purple horizon, then he laughs. “Thus, online dating.”

Patrick follows Joe’s gaze, out to where the last little bit of golden light is streaking across the sky. It’s painful--it’s like Joe is talking directly to him, but the advice is coming a month too late, and maybe that’s why Joe is getting what he wants while Patrick isn’t. Joe wanted something and put himself out there; Patrick wanted something and didn’t.

He clears his throat. “Sometimes you just have to take a risk.”

Joe’s head is tilted down toward his beer on the table but his eyes are focused up, on Patrick’s face. He clears his throat. “You think?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I mean. Sometimes I guess you just have to go for it, you know?” he’s aware that he’s echoing Pete--it’s the advice he should have taken, and it tastes bitter coming out of his mouth. He keeps going. “Like...you’re never going to get that payoff, or whatever, if you don’t even try.” Joe hasn’t looked away, he’s still as a statue except for his breathing, and his eyes are big and serious. It’s fucking painful, taking the pro-online dating, pro-Simon stance here, and Patrick’s not sure why he’s doing it. He’s not sure why he’s here at all, really, except maybe the answer to both is that, despite the secretive math and the even more secretive jerking off, he is Joe’s friend, and Joe does actually deserve to be happy. Even if it’s with Simon. “Simon’s cool.”

Joe’s brow furrows and he blinks himself out of whatever trance he was just in. “That’s not really what I meant,” he says, then trails off. It’s silent for a long moment. There are cicadas chirping, somewhere overhead. Patrick bites his lip, watching Joe watching him do it, and he doesn’t know what Joe is about to say but he hears water rushing. Maybe it’s the pool but it sounds like the tide going out before a tsunami, before it breaks and crashes apart, and he holds his breath. He thinks Joe is doing the same. In the twilight, backlit by the garden lights, his hair looks like the puff of a dandelion, and he keeps opening his mouth on little inhales, like he’s about to speak but can’t get it right, and then a pool noodle slaps wetly against the concrete behind Patrick, and they both jump. Joe doesn’t look away, but Patrick does, reflexively, gasping.

There’s a girl with water in her eyes, laughing, propped up on the side of the pool, and she says, “Sorry, did I get you?”

“No,” Patrick says, squinting through droplets on his glasses. “You’re fine.” He turns back, aware that there’s water on his neck, too, swiping at it. “That’s, uh...probably the end of my pool party for the night,” he says, when Joe doesn’t look up from his examination of the table top.

Joe nods. “I should…” he says, gesturing vaguely toward the rest of the party, toward Simon, with his glass, still not meeting Patrick’s eyes.

“Sure, yeah…” Patrick looks over at the line for ice cream sundaes, grimaces, and takes a gulp of his gross beer. It’s not getting better, now that it’s getting warm, and he literally chokes it down, complete with weird, guttural noises and a wet cough. He wipes his eyes when he’s done, then cleans the pool water off of his glasses.

At least it gets Joe to look at him, the whole theatrical production. He’s smiling blurrily until Patrick re-settles his glasses, at which point the fond crinkle of his eyes becomes clear. “You’re a disaster, dude.”

“Yeah,” Patrick croaks around the beer still in his trachea. “I’m…that’s it for me, I think.” Joe just nods again, but his brow is furrowed. Patrick doesn’t know what to do but follow through, so he stands up, makes to slap Joe on the back but his hand slips, lands high and slides until it’s on the back of Joe’s neck, thumb in the wispy curls behind his ear.

Before he can react, Joe stands, too, and hugs him. “Thanks for coming, man,” he says, thumping Patrick’s shoulder blade.

“Yeah,” Patrick says. He’s desperately trying to remember the normal way to hug back, where his hands should go besides Joe’s waist, and he almost misses it when Joe mumbles.

“We’re cool, right?”

“Of course,” Patrick says into Joe’s shoulder. He squeezes tight around Joe’s middle, temporarily forgetting about his hands because Joe’s not letting go, seems worried, almost. “We’re cool.”

Joe still doesn’t let go. Patrick’s fingers are buried in the warm cotton over his ribs, now, and he doesn’t know what to do--letting go seems too much like pulling away, so he slides them around to Joe’s back and pretends like it isn’t a caress.

“Okay,” Joe eventually says. “If I’m, like…” he shakes his head instead of finishing, hair brushing against Patrick’s cheek. Then he pulls away. “You’re confusing,” he says, serious and small. “Sorry.” Then, before Patrick can react, he picks up his beer and steps back. “I’m gonna get some ice cream. You good getting home?”

_Patrick_ is confused. He’s--he doesn’t know what just happened, but it feels like _something_ , and Joe is moving already, before he can react, so he just nods in the end and stands there while Joe walks away.

His leg bounces in the cab, the whole way home, and he keeps pulling his phone out. In the end, under the streetlights on Sunset, he texts _Thanks again! I had fun._ It’s fucking stupid--he didn’t have fun, not really, and they’re way past the point where Joe requires a thank you, anyway. But he wants--something, desperately. A response, an acknowledgement. Normalcy, reassurance that they really are okay.

To know what it meant, that quiet _you’re confusing_ , when they were standing on Joe’s new boyfriend’s patio, with his band friends laughing around them and his record collection playing.

Joe hasn’t answered when they pull up at Patrick’s condo, or when Patrick has showered and changed into sweatpants. Patrick can’t stop checking, compulsively; it’s all he can think about, and after the third time he rereads the same email from Bob without registering a single word of it, he gives up and sprawls on the couch in a miserable heap. Embraces the cliche. He texts Pete. _I think my heart is broken, dude_.

Pete answers: _u cant come over and whine on my couch_.

Patrick drops his phone and doesn’t reply. It isn’t--it’s not the end of the world, it’s just...Patrick wants Joe, and Joe wanted...someone. Maybe it could have been Patrick, but maybe he missed his chance, because Simon is...well, that’s the heart of it. 

_Patrick_ would date Simon; Simon is terrible because Simon is actually pretty great. And Pete’s right, because Joe _does_ barely know Simon, but with every day that passes he knows Simon better--all because Patrick’s a fucking coward.

It’s a lot to sit with, alone in his house while Joe’s probably--Joe and Simon are probably tidying up and kissing in the kitchen, and...well. That line of thought is enough to make his chest hurt. 

He texts Pete again: _no really, my heart is broken_.

Pete texts back: _ben &jerrys porn and whiskey & call me in the morning._

Patrick pours himself a whiskey but he barely touches it. After half an hour he gives up, takes a shower and climbs into bed with his hair dampening the pillowcase under his cheek. He’s still wide awake when it’s dry. 

He just--over and over, his mind keeps cycling through the day, the month, the tour. His stupid spreadsheets, all that time wasted doing math, all his paralyzing fears that he’d be rejected. Joe singing the Cure, smiling at him from the other side of a hotel bed. Joe taking him to a club in Vegas to see a band Patrick mentioned liking once. Joe tonight, saying _doing the same old thing...it’s never going to get you what you want_. And this afternoon, _we’re gonna be cool no matter what_.

He feels like he’s at the top of a roller coaster, two seconds from having too much momentum to turn back. He feels like he’s about to do something stupid.

Then Joe texts him back, and he knows he is.

_i’m glad you had fun. Hope you didn’t get too attached to Simon though--I think we failed the “meeting each other’s friends” test._

_What?_ Patrick texts back.

_I’m not gonna see him again. It’s all good though dude._

Patrick’s hands are shaking. They broke up.

It’s surreal--feels like divine intervention or something impossible and lucky and his brain can’t quite process all the implications. He sits up in bed, a shock of adrenaline flooding his system with nowhere to go. Puts his feet on the floor, stands for a minute staring into the dark corner of his bedroom. _They broke up_. He sits back down on the edge of the bed. He should say something, something sympathetic. _That sucks_ or _sorry dude,_ even though he isn’t. He should respond and then get back under the covers, go to sleep. Reevaluate in the morning.

He wants, overwhelmingly, to drive over to Joe’s and kiss him. It’s terrifying for a million reasons, still--it’s the middle of the night; Joe just broke up with someone. It’s is such a laughably bad time to do this that it hadn’t even made the discard list for the flowchart. Joe probably just wants to go to sleep--Patrick probably can wait a day or two.

But waiting has been his fucking problem this whole time, hasn’t it? He doesn’t want to wait anymore, wishes he had said something in the car that night in Vegas, or before that, even, over froyo or when Joe was setting up his profile or the first time Joe fucking mentioned online dating at all. He wishes he had said, “Hey, what about me? _I’m_ into you, and _I’m_ practical and you make me laugh and I think we could be good together.”

It’s like an itch under his skin, making his muscles twitch--the knowledge that Simon is out of the picture and he didn’t say it before, wasn’t brave enough, but he could make up for that right now. He shouldn’t--it would be a dumb move, sloppy and reckless, and Joe might not want to hear it; it might be a disaster; Patrick might get his heart broken. But at least he’d _know_. 

He can’t shake off the thought, and his hands are shaking but he texts Joe again: _are you home?_

_Yeah_

His breath catches.

It’s 3am. It’s 3am and probably the worst timing in every other possible way, too. Patrick might throw up in his car. He might get his heart broken.

_I’m coming over_ , he types, and by the time he hits send, he’s already out of bed and searching for his keys.

The streets are dead for LA and Patrick is cold, sitting in his car. He’s still wearing flannel pajama pants and a t-shirt, no hat, and the first shoes he could slide on over bare feet. He wasn’t thinking ‘fashion’ when he got in the car, or warmth, because nights in LA are considerably chillier than his warm bed. He cranks the heat at an absurdly long red light.

This is so fucking stupid...an absurd cliche, and he lectures himself brutally while he drives. All those months of biting his tongue, carefully guarding this big fucking secret, plotting points on a graph and trying to be a supportive friend while Joe pretended to be Tom Hanks and went on dates with chicken farmers, and this is what it comes to. Racing across town in the darkness, with literal cold feet, so he can stand on Joe’s doorstep and, what? Pour his heart out for a 28% chance that Joe might feel the same?

It’s like a bad 80s movie, a John Hughes knock-off, except Patrick’s not supposed to be in this scene, he’s not the kind of guy who gets cast for this type of role, and he knows it. It’s a terrible idea.

He’s definitely still heading toward Joe’s, though, like the brave part of him, the desperate part of his animal brain has overridden mechanical control of body and locked onto the destination--he thinks about turning into a gas station, just to collect himself, just to catch his breath, but his foot stays steady on the accelerator and he flies past.

It’s a terrible idea, but he seems to be doing it anyway.

Patrick pulls into the parking lot of Joe’s condo and turns off the ignition. He didn’t puke on himself while he was driving, so that’s good. His head hits the steering wheel--he might be hyperventilating--and he closes his eyes for a moment. 

_Okay_. 

Okay, he can do this. For better or worse. He clings to Joe’s voice in his head-- _we’re gonna be cool no matter what_.

The hallways are silent as he winds his way to Joe’s condo. There’s a light on, deep inside, visible through the narrow glass panels that bracket Joe’s front door, just enough that it’s obvious that Joe is still awake. Patrick raises his hand to knock but the door swings inward when his fist touches it. The security bolt is thrown, keeping it from latching, and it’s open.

Joe’s standing in the hallway in sweatpants. He’s blinking like he doesn’t believe Patrick is really there, which is reasonable, because this is very un-Patrick-like behavior. _Patrick’s_ not sure he’s here--maybe he’s dreaming. Maybe he tripped and fell into Simon’s pool earlier and hit his head, and he’s about to wake up soaking wet with an EMT frenching him.

He steps inside and throws the bolt the other way, closing the door behind himself. Locking it.

Joe rubs at one eye, and for a moment they just keep standing, staring at each other. He looks a little bit stoned, maybe, or tipsy, and he doesn’t smile but he doesn’t look like he’s been crying about Simon, either.

“Hey,” Patrick croaks.

“...Hey.” Joe’s expression is moderately concerned, eyebrows scrunched together. “Uh, not that I’m not always happy to see you, dude, but…I mean, like…is everything okay? Did something _happen_?” 

Joe’s tone implies a catastrophe and he looks wary, like Patrick’s here to announce that someone died, and so Patrick shakes his head. 

Something did happen, though, has _been_ happening, and maybe it’s not what Joe meant, but midway through the _no_ Patrick reverses course and nods a bit.

The set of Joe’s eyebrows morphs from worry to flat-out confusion.

“Not—Nothing bad.” Patrick tries to reassure. His voice shakes and it’s probably less than confidence-inducing so he rushes on. “Are, uh. You okay? Like… about Simon and everything?”

Joe just blinks. “Oh,” he says, glancing at the floor. When he looks back up, his expression is cautious. “I’m fine, yeah. It was pretty much mutual, I guess, but...it was my call, ultimately. I’m...okay.” He scratches his chin.

“Good. That’s, um. That’s good. Because…” Patrick’s chest freezes up; he’s not sure he can get the words out, not with Joe’s eyes searching his face like they are.

The silence stretches on too long. Patrick wonders if Joe can see him shaking.

“Patrick,” Joe says, eventually. His voice is soft. “Dude, like...are you--”

Patrick holds up one hand and Joe cuts himself off. “Just--just give me a minute, okay? Just don’t...talk for a minute.”

Joe nods.

Patrick’s trying desperately to remember the flowchart, all the steps he plotted out to reach 28%, but it’s no help. _Do you want to go on a date with me?--_ it’s three in the fucking morning and Patrick’s standing here in his fucking pajamas and Joe looks worried again, now.

He’s so far off-script.

“I, um…” His throat freezes up a little and he clears it, then shakes his head. He rubs at his eyes under his glasses and tries again. He can tell that his voice is going to shake before he makes a sound.

“So...I’m in love with you.”

The words just hang there. Patrick’s knees are shaking so hard he’s surprised he’s upright, and he’s staring at Joe’s coatrack like it’s going to save his life because he can’t look at Joe. “And,” his mouth is still going, somehow, stringing random words together, “I was wondering if you want to go get froyo with me. Sometime. Like--a date.”

Joe keeps not saying anything, and Patrick tries to breathe but it comes out a little wheezy. He clears his throat again. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to ask for a while. And...I know this is like...maybe the worst timing in the world, and maybe--I mean, if you don’t feel the same...” Patrick trails off. It’s getting harder to keep talking, the longer Joe just stands there, staring at him.

No one moves.

“You’re out of your mind,” Joe says finally. 

Patrick’s eyes fly to Joe’s face; he looks stunned and he’s shaking his head vaguely and Patrick’s stomach drops, the roller coaster crashes and he’s about to apologize, about to cry maybe.

Joe keeps going. “You’re totally fucking nuts. Is this--are you kidding me?” His voice is dazed, not angry, just...baffled, and Patrick clings to that.

“I’m not.” He makes his voice as firm as he can. “I’m...I’m serious, actually. Really, really serious.”

Joe keeps staring, eyes on Patrick’s. After a long moment, the corners of his lips start to turn up. “All of this,” he says, shaking his head, “...and you--I took you out on a date, Patrick--a really _good_ date, and you didn’t even...you just…. You’re a lunatic.” A chuckle slips out and he puts one hand over his eyes.

Patrick has no idea what’s going on. “Joe? Are you…?” 

Joe drops his hand when Patrick speaks, and he must read the nausea on Patrick’s face because he reaches out. “C’mere,” he says, still laughing a little, breathless. “C’mere.” He tugs Patrick forward, wraps around him, and Patrick’s hands rise to his ribs out of instinct, maybe, while Joe pulls him close. “I feel the same way, you fucking...doorknob,” Joe says, face pressed tight into the top of Patrick’s shoulder. “I’m in love with you, too, okay?”

Patrick blinks. His hands firm up on Joe’s ribs, slide around to his back, tug him closer. He blinks again. “I was gonna say...” It comes out kind of muffled against Joe’s neck, but Patrick keeps going anyway. “I was gonna say it’s okay, if you don’t, um, feel that way. We can still be friends, like, I don’t want to make you feel weird about it.”

Joe is laughing again, and he pulls back enough that he can see Patrick’s face. “Patrick,” he says, “I know you plan for every possible terrible outcome--it’s cute, the neurotic thing--but, dude. You can stop. I basically ended things with Simon because of--” he gestures at Patrick, “you. Okay?”

“You called me a doorknob,” Patrick says. Maybe he’s the one who’s gone hysterically deaf--he’s a few beats behind, brain struggling to process.

Joe just shakes his head, one eyebrow raised. “You’ve kinda been a doorknob. I thought you--I mean I heard you tell Pete that you weren’t, like...into me.” 

“What?” That makes no sense at all, and Patrick shakes his head vehemently. The idea is patently absurd. He tells Joe that. “ _When?_ Because that’s...patently absurd.”

Joe just shrugs. “It doesn’t matter, I guess,” he says, pulling Patrick close again. “You’re here now.”

“Yeah.” Patrick’s shock is giving way; his brain is coming back online. Joe’s words are registering, sinking in, and he grins, a stupid huge grin, and leans his head forward against Joe’s shoulder to hide it. He wants to pinch himself--loops his arms around Joe’s back so he can reach his own wrist and does it and it hurts, but he doesn’t wake up, stays where he is with Joe’s breath in his ear and it makes his smile even bigger. 

They don’t move for a while, don’t talk, either, and Patrick closes his eyes and lets himself smell Joe’s deodorant and laundry detergent, guilt-free. Eventually he says, “I, um...I don’t really have a plan for this part. Like, I don’t know what happens next.”

Joe’s thumb has been rubbing the back of his neck, while Patrick was discreetly sniffing, and he stops. “What do you want to happen next?” his voice is quieter, almost uncertain.

It shouldn’t feel scary anymore but it still does, when Patrick tilts his face up to Joe’s. Joe is watching him, and the laughter is gone from his eyes, and Patrick’s brain is racing and it occurs to him, just then, that maybe Joe was just as much of a mess as he was about this. Maybe Joe was pining and maybe Joe was scared and...maybe Patrick really is a doorknob.

He leans in slowly in case Joe wants to back away. Joe doesn’t, but he doesn’t come closer, either--he lets Patrick come to him, press their lips together. It’s sweet and brief and when Patrick pulls back Joe’s breath shudders out of him in a rush and the corner of his lip is curling up in a small, private smile and so Patrick does it again and again until Joe’s hands come up on either side of his face and hold him in place while they kiss.

Patrick’s getting lightheaded; it’s a giddy rush he hasn’t felt since he was a kid. He’s done this plenty, but it’s _Joe_ , and after all those months of wanting, every tiny shift of his mouth, his arms, feels breathlessly risky, exploratory, the way nothing has since the very first time. He’s barely breathing.

One of Joe’s hands slips slowly down to bunch in the back of Patrick’s t-shirt by his waist, just for something to hold onto, but it rucks the fabric up enough that the heel of his palm presses against bare skin at the small of Patrick’s back and it’s like a lightning bolt; Patrick jerks forward into Joe’s body, breath rushing out of him, and squeezes tighter at Joe’s waist, and suddenly it’s not tentative at all. 

When they pull apart he’s dazed, panting; his bottom lip feels tingly, and he sucks it into his mouth and watches Joe watch him, panting, too.

“Uh,” Joe says, “we, um. Okay--wow.”

“Yeah...”

“I can’t believe you’re here...I can’t believe we, like…” Joe shakes his head and the corners of his lips turn up. It morphs into a chuckle, slowly, and Patrick laughs, too, still breathless and a little loopy with a sudden sense of possibility or something. Happiness. 

The tension between them doesn’t dissipate completely--Joe’s eyes are heavy-lidded, and Patrick can still feel sparks where Joe was touching him, like he left fingerprints--but it mellows as they giggle, and then Joe says, “Do you want to, like...come to bed?”

Patrick’s breath stops for a second, and even though he tries to play it cool, to hide the thrill that zings through his belly, Joe must see his eyes widen because he rushes on. “I mean--it’s late, and...we could just...sleep.”

Patrick is about to say _no_ , he doesn’t want to sleep, wants to revel in this moment, to talk everything out, to kiss some more, but when he opens his mouth he yawns instead. The adrenaline rush that carried him over here is dissipating and he ends up yawning again, even bigger, before the first one ends. His eyes are watery when he’s done and Joe smiles and pushes his staticy hair off his forehead and says, “C’mon...we can figure the rest out in the morning. Let’s just--. Come to bed with me.”

Patrick has been in hundreds of rooms where Joe has slept over the years, in his parent’s house when they were kids and their shared apartment, buses and hotels, but he’s barely even seen this bedroom, Joe’s real, adult bedroom. It’s thrilling, now, to be led in by the hand.

They take turns in the master bath and then climb into bed. There must be a foot of space between them, at first, both lying on their backs, and Patrick suddenly doesn’t know how to bridge it; everything seems surreal and different, suddenly, with the lights off, and he blinks at the ceiling, listens to Joe breathing next to him. Pinches his arm again.

After a few long minutes of silence, Joe says, “Sooo…” and Patrick’s heart jumps in his chest, anticipating _this is weird_ or _maybe you should go home after all_ or even, crazily, _you’re on Candid Camera_. But what Joe actually says is, “That’s kinda my side, actually.”

And Patrick sighs in relief, tries to make it sound like annoyance, and says, “Oh, sorry,” as he heaves himself up and over Joe’s body, trying to switch them around. Joe is giggling, trying to scoot out from under him while Patrick straddles his waist, and his hands fly to Patrick’s hips to steady him midway. When he lands with an _oof_ on the far side of the mattress, their legs are intertwined and Patrick has a fist clenched in Joe’s shirt, and it doesn’t feel so impossible anymore, to stay pressed against him. “Better?” he asks.

“Much.” Joe’s grin is audible. “C’mere.” He finds Patrick’s hand in the darkness and tugs, twists sideways, turning himself into the little spoon. “Okay?”

Patrick pushes his face into the back of Joe’s shoulder blade. “Okay.”

He doesn’t know how he could possibly sleep, feeling Joe’s chest rise and fall under his palm, but it rushes up on him. He makes the cotton of Joe’s t-shirt damp, yawning into it, and right as he’s about to drift off, Joe says something.

Patrick’s not sure it’s real, at first; he’s half-buried in a fantasy blurring into a dream where he’s mouthing at Joe’s neck and it all seems equally fuzzy and impossible and idyllic, but then Joe says it again, quietly.

“How long?”

It rouses him a little, just enough to turn his head, nuzzle into Joe’s hairline and plant a kiss on the side of his neck. “A long time,” he says, kissing again, feeling the last little bit of tension drain out of Joe’s shoulders. “This whole tour. I’ve been--I’ve been lying in bed this whole tour, wanting exactly this.”

In the morning, Patrick wakes up slowly, curled on his side, fully clothed and perfectly warm. He cracks his eyes open; he’s staring at Joe’s bedside table and his autographed Anthrax poster on the wall, and the previous night comes flooding back. His breath catches--he’s in Joe’s bed, and for a moment he’s afraid to move at all because he doesn’t want the whole thing to shatter. Before he can decide what to do--reach for his glasses, go back to sleep--a hand lands on his waist and then Joe’s hair is brushing against the curve of his neck, tickling his cheek from behind.

“Morning,” Joe rasps, before pressing his mouth against Patrick’s shoulder over his t-shirt, warm, and his hand slides down and around Patrick’s waist until he’s spooned up behind him.

Patrick just hums and tips his head to the side--the back of his neck is sensitive, and the feel of Joe’s beard there is making the hair on his arms stand up. They drift for a while like that, but then Joe plants a sloppy kiss at the base of his hairline and another one behind his ear. Patrick presses back into Joe’s body, and his breath is coming faster. Joe’s is, too, gusting against his skin, and he really wants to shut his brain off and enjoy it but he has a stray thought about charting this on his spreadsheet and that’s all it takes for his paranoia to triumph over his hormones.

“Wait,” he croaks, squeezing Joe’s wrist where it’s wrapped over his waist, and Joe stops immediately but doesn’t pull back, just fits his chin over Patrick’s shoulder. “We should--” Patrick falters because he can feel Joe’s chest pressed up against his back under the blanket, hips angled carefully away, and his dick is screaming at him that they should keep going, but, “we should slow down, maybe,” he says. Even as he his mouth forms the words, his eyes close against what a stupid suggestion it is.

Joe squeezes his waist. “Sure,” he says. He’s smiling, Patrick can hear it in his voice. “We can go slow.”

“It’s just that...I mean…” Patrick can hardly get words out around the internal screaming match that’s happening between his brain and his dick, and he can hear the frustration over that situation in his voice. “You didn’t really answer me last night. So, like…”

Joe’s quiet for a moment, thinking, and then chuckles. “When you asked me on a froyo date?” He sounds incredulous, but in a fond way, so when Patrick huffs in response it’s only mildly offended. “Patrick...you showed up at my house at 3am. I think you were 30 seconds from throwing pebbles at my window. _You_ did that--not Pete, not Lloyd Dobbler. Knowing you...I sort of figured we were past the first date stage, you know? Like, I was thinking more like: do you want a spring wedding?”

Patrick’s face flames, and he smacks at Joe’s arm, cranky at being caught out. “Don’t--,” he says, and sighs, exasperated. “You didn’t _answer_ , though. About the froyo.”

Joe flops onto his back, leaving Patrick chilly on one side. “We can go on a date, sure. But I’m really hoping we’re going to just, like...be together. Now. I’ve been really into you for a long time, and after last night, I’m thinking you feel the same way.”

Patrick turns his head to bury a goofy grin in the pillow and then kicks at the covers until he’s free enough to turn, catching Joe in the shin as he rearranges them face to face. “A long time?”

Joe rolls his eyes, but his cheeks are red underneath his crazy bedhead. “I pretty much spent the entire tour trying to take you on a date, dude.”

“You spent the entire tour dating randos off the internet.”

“It was part of my plan,” Joe shrugs, then pokes Patrick in the side. “I told you from the beginning that I had a plan.”

“How is that a plan?” It makes no sense at all and Patrick blinks at Joe, partially due to blindness but he hopes it conveys his complete lack of comprehension as well. At least Patrick’s flowchart was _logical_.

“I mean...it worked.”

“But…” Patrick starts to protest and then stops. Joe’s grinning up at him, one hand tucked behind his head on the pillow. He’s shirtless, and it’s a little forward, maybe, but Patrick can finally lean down and kiss the freckles on his shoulder that taunted him at that tiny, scrolly metal table under the Miami sun.

He scoots up the bed so he can press his lips to Joe’s skin while Joe chuckles in his ear, then stops, abruptly, and pulls back when a thought occurs to him.

“Does Pete know?”

“Pete knew I wanted to ask you out when we met, dude.” Joe shrugs, like the admission was nothing, like it’s not causing Patrick’s understanding of the entire history of the band to jigsaw itself apart and back together into a crazy new pattern. “You were straight,” Joe finally continues. “And then you said you weren’t, but you never seemed interested in any of the guys around you, and...I don’t know. I kept hoping you would maybe...look at me.”

Patrick has to kiss him then, so he does, leaning over to press their lips together gently, sliding his thumb against the line of Joe’s jaw. It’s still new enough, unbelievable enough to make Patrick’s blood zing and his head light, but he pulls back before he can get carried away. 

“I was looking.” 

He’s on one elbow, leaning over Joe who’s smiling, eyes soft, and he thinks maybe he’ll show Joe the spreadsheet one day soon.

So that’s how it goes. Pete’s insufferable about it, of course, and when he hears about Patrick’s late night sprint across town he demands a reenactment. Patrick’s saving it for Pete’s wedding gift.

He makes it about a week before he shows Joe the spreadsheets--the Simon one first because it’s petty as fuck but it doesn’t contain his entire heart, basically, like the other one. 

“He wasn’t _better than you_ ,” Joe says, chuckling at the pie chart. “But...he was a good dude, really.”

“I’m sure he was.” Patrick should be ashamed, maybe, of the Reasons Simon is Terrible list, but he isn’t. “I didn’t feel great about myself for wishing that he’d turn out to be married or straight. Or that he’d fall into the La Brea tar pits while walking the _dog_ you adopted with him. But,” he shrugs, “what’re you gonna do? I really fucking hated that guy.”

“Yeah, well--he wasn’t your biggest fan, either. I think he was a little...threatened.”

The thought shouldn’t make Patrick happy, smug and satisfied, but what can he say? It does.

When Joe finally sees the main spreadsheet, the first one, he spends about two days poring over it, quizzing Patrick about every little dip and spike--what happened that day and what had Joe been wearing, like it’s market research or something. He’s especially interested in the pink days, the days Patrick jerked off thinking about him, once he figures out the coding scheme--and the questions get pretty intrusive. It would almost get annoying, after a while, if Patrick hadn’t seen the way Joe blushed when he first saw it--actual proof of how long Patrick had been into him, after all.

Patrick’s never sure he understands what Joe’s plan was, for all those months. He gets that it _was_ a date, now--the taco truck and the rest of it--but he doesn’t really understand how the online dating factored in, how that was supposed to work. 

They’re at Walgreens buying shampoo and condoms and Patrick turns down the hair care aisle and says, out of nowhere, “So--just run through this for me one more time. You went out with the creepy hair-collector guy so I would see how much _fun_ online dating was? And that was gonna lure me into your arms, somehow?”

Joe huffs and bends over the handle of their cart in exasperation. “I _told_ you back then, I wanted to be your Mr. Miyagi. I was waiting for you to, you know...get all the crazy slutting around out of your system so I could make my move, and when you didn’t, I thought I’d show you how it’s done.”

Patrick squints at him. “I still don’t see it, dude,” but Joe just shrugs and laughs.

Patrick pokes him in the side and leans down to grab a bottle of his brand. “Oh, wait,” he says, before he puts it in the cart. “I really like this shampoo and I want to take it home and _use_ the _shit_ out of it. Maybe I should put it on eBay and see if I can pimp it out to someone else first! Maybe I can put myself on eBay, too, and show the shampoo how it’s done.”

Joe’s giggling now. “I didn’t say it was a well-thought out plan...it made sense at the time. I spent a lot of time distracted on that tour by your...you know, that thing you do when you eat froyo,” Joe kind of sucks on his lips. “I wasn’t thinking clearly.”

That look in Joe’s eyes is still thrilling, still feels new, and Patrick blushes. “Well,” he says, fussily, clearing his throat, “...that’s okay, then.”

“Besides,” Joe says, as they navigate back toward the checkout, “I’d really like these condoms to touch my dick. But maybe, first, I should just track, you know, my feelings about them, day-to-day, for like...the next three months.”

The cashier glares when Patrick pretends to hit Joe with a rolled up copy of Marie Claire and they end up having to buy it. But yeah. That’s pretty much how it goes.

The End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m on tumblr as [hey-ginger](https://hey-ginger.tumblr.com/). Come say hi if you liked the story, or just want to talk about FOB!

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Complement Art & Bonus Music Mix: Combinatorics](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16819954) by [rosiedoesfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosiedoesfic/pseuds/rosiedoesfic)




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